


Damnati ad Gladium

by Polyhexian



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Established Relationship, Gladiatorial combat!, Good ending timeline, M/M, POV Third Person, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Ideation, the drama of it all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:37:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24630148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian
Summary: The Lost Light docks for a pleasure stop on an inhabited planet for a week of Hedonia-style revelry, but every planet has a dark side, as Whirl and Tailgate are about to find out. After getting thrown into a gladiatorial arena, Whirl starts relapsing to old habits. Tailgate's not a huge fan.
Relationships: Cyclonus/Tailgate (Transformers), Cyclonus/Tailgate/Whirl (Transformers), Cyclonus/Whirl (Transformers), Tailgate/Whirl (Transformers)
Comments: 96
Kudos: 132





	1. Haven't Had Enough

**Author's Note:**

> [dabs on my 600 word story outline] this shit is about to get weird folks. rated m because its gonna get violent and its gonna get Edgy. if youve read anything ive ever written you probably know what tropes to expect. we doin it. plotted out for five chapters but im not holding myself to that if it wiggles away from that

Whirl synthesized a yawn, dramatic as always, and pulled the minibot little spooning against his abdomen that much closer, burying his helm in Cyclonus's neck.

"You have to get up, Whirl," Cyclonus reminded him, but made no move to get up, either. 

"No, I don't," Whirl scoffed, stubbornly.

"If you want shore leave, you can't skip rotation today," Tailgate laughed, squeezing one of his claws, "Don't think we won't go have fun without you if you get grounded."

"Of course you wouldn't," Whirl pouted, "You would be too sad. Boohoo. You'd hole up here and cry the whole time cuz you wouldn't have no partybird."

"Nope, me and Cyclonus would go find a karaoke bar and have fun, because you got in your shore leave request and then threw it away to sleep in because you didn't wanna work," Tailgate continued to tease, and Whirl groaned. 

"Fine, fine," he finally pulled away from their little tangle of limbs and sleepy morning pillowtalk, rising and stretching tired servos. He had taken an early rotation to finish earning off his last trip to the brig before that evening's scheduled stop on an inhabited planet, something they hadn't seen in awhile, especially since they didn't have any maps of the universe they were in. The place was going to be fresh and exciting and totally unpredictable, all of Whirl's favourite things. But, that did mean he was going to have to go sit and stare at a screen for several hours first, to his dismay.

"We'll meet you in the loading bay when we dock, okay! We won't disembark without you," Tailgate said, twisting around to brighten his visor at him in a smile as Whirl grabbed a box of ammo from his desk and tossed it in his cockpit for the day, giving Tailgate a vague wave of acknowledgement.

"Cool. See y'all after my shift," he sighed, keying the door open, "love you."

"Love you," the two of them mumbled, half in recharge again already, and he shut the door behind him, heading off to feed Sparky downstairs before joining Rodimus on the bridge for his shift.

* * *

"Hey, you waited for me!" Whirl cheered as he hopped over the railing onto the first floor of the loading bay, skipping the stairs and landing with a thump and a rattle of the floor tiles. 

"Of course we did!" Tailgate waved, "What, you think I was gonna leave my Whirlibird behind when he _could_ be carrying me?" 

"You're right," Whirl nodded, scooping the minibot up and plopping him on his shoulders, "That would be cruel of me." 

"You seem in good spirits," Cyclonus commented, "Did Rodimus let you use the canon today?"

"Rodimus let me use the canon today!" Whirl cheered as the two of them set off to disembark the ship and head towards where the rest of the crew had gone, an area that looked like some kind of pleasure sector, full of bars. 

Whirl felt in his element here, unlike he did when they went puttering about old alien temples and ruins while Cyclonus mumbled notes for the book he was writing on religions in the new universe (who was even going to read it?) and Tailgate wobbled around with Rewind taking photos. Whirl found stuff like that boring, but here, he was in charge, he was the top bot you wanted to be with, the guy who could clear a room with a glance, the one who could always get a bartender's attention. He liked showing off. 

"Hey, look, it's Roddy!" Tailgate pointed, and Whirl looked over at where their captain was lingering outside of a particularly colourfully lit bar with Ratchet and Drift. Drift waved back. 

"Should we join them?" Cyclonus inquired, and Whirl grunted an affirmative, landing and transforming to his root mode to head over and bother them.

"Well ain't you a sight for sore optics," Whirl whistled.

"You saw me, like, twenty minutes ago," Rodimus deadpanned, looking irritated. 

"Ooh, touchy, were you guys doin' something private? We can go," Whirl sniffed, shifting his grip on Tailgate's legs.

"No, no, please, join us, we were just about to go in," Drift answered, firmly, "Please." 

Whirl flicked his optic to Cyclonus, who shrugged, so Whirl followed them inside. They were lucky that it was mech friendly after all. They had the good stuff in stock and everything. 

Whirl's antennae swiveled up when he realized what probably had put Rodimus in such a foul mood to see him- Megatron had already claimed them a table. Whirl was still doing his best to avoid the old man, even after the whole offscreen-alternate-universe-redemption-arc he seemed to have gone through. He didn't trust him.

"Birdy," Tailgate said, tapping Whirl on the head, and Whirl picked him up and set him down on the floor. Tailgate, ever spoiled, scrambled for a seat between his partner's. 

"Guess I'm ordering, then?" Whirl snorted, "What do you two want?" 

"Do they have engex?" Tailgate inquired, peering past him at the lineup behind the bar, "Or just regular combustion fuel?" 

"Engex," Megatron rumbled, nodding. 

"Ooh, get me something sweet," Tailgate beamed, "With a tiny umbrella."

"Something plain," Cyclonus requested, politely, "I'm not feeling like overindulging tonight." 

"Cool," Whirl waved, and was glad he couldn't frown when he saw Megatron grab orders from the rest of the table, _including_ Drift and Ratchet, and then follow him to the bar. 

"It has been too long since we've stopped at an inhabited planet," Megatron commented, politely, and Whirl flicked his optic toward him, suspiciously, leaning against the bar and giving the bartender an 'I'm going to put your kids through college tonight' nod.

"Yeah," said Whirl. 

"Mm. I presumed I was not your top choice for company this evening," Megatron sighed, mirthful.

"Hey, can I get something sweet enough to rot an organic on the spot with a tiny umbrella, something that tastes like paper, and- hey, do you got any phosphoric acid? Can you throw that in your toughest stuff for me?' Whirl requested when the bartender made his way over, and nodded.

"Put his drinks on my tab," Megatron added, and Whirl scanned his optic back to him, distrusting.

"The fuck you do that for?" he asked, as the bartender turned around. 

"I feel we got off on the wrong foot," Megatron replied, "I've had a lot of time to think about the past, and I think my feelings regarding our… history have changed, somewhat."

"Right," Whirl narrowed his optic at him, "If you say so."

"I lied, when I said my second order was to let you live," Megatron continued, "I just knew that would get under your plating."

"Yeah, I figured that out when Drift didn't have a fuckin' clue what I was talkin' about when I asked him," Whirl quipped, "Whatever." 

"I just thought you should know."

"Yeah, well, thanks, I know," Whirl said, as the bartender slid him three drinks, and he frowned, realizing suddenly he only had two claws, and dropped the sizzling acid cocktail he'd ordered into his cockpit, "thanks for covering me, or whatever."

"You're welcome."

Whirl headed back to the table and handed Tailgate and Cyclonus their orders, sitting down and trying not to show how perturbed he was, which shouldn't be a problem, since he didn't have a face to-

"Hey, are you okay?" Tailgate whispered at him.

"Yeah, I'm good, no worries," Whirl answered immediately, retrieving his bubbling brew and tipping back his first shot.

"As I was saying," Rodimus said, continuing whatever tangent Whirl's arrival had interrupted, "I paid for a week of dock space. We can really see some proper sights for once!" 

"Mm," nodded Drift, "Maybe we can ask a local for some tourist ideas?"

"I never got to go to six lasers over Cybetron before someone blew it up," Ratchet commented, as Megatron returned, setting down a tray with the party's remaining drinks.

"Not me," he responded, " _that_ was an Autobot casualty."

"Still," Ratchet mumbled, before he replaced the words with his drink.

"Oh, wouldn't that be fun?" Drift sighed, wistfully, "Roller coasters seem so exciting." 

"Who cares about roller coasters?" Rodimus rolled his optics, "We have a _spaceship_."

"But that's totally different!" Drift argued, "There's something- you know, different, about something _built_ to be fun like that! We just don't make things like that on Cybertron, we've never had the time. Not for ages."

" _I_ would love to go on a rollercoaster!" Tailgate supplied.

"See!" Drift said, waving at him, "At least someone understands me." 

Ratchet snorted into his drink.

Whirl kept his optic on Megatron as the conversation drifted away from roller coasters and into nature walks, trying and failing not to seem sullen and bitter, though at least Tailgate didn't let Whirl’s poor attitude get him down, and continued to brim with excitement at the prospect of doing kitschy touristy activities. By the time Tailgate was on his second drink and Whirl on his fourth, he was starting to consider talking to the old man again.

"You've been very quiet, Whirl," Drift said, snapping Whirl from his reverie, "Is everything alright?" 

"Huh? Yeah," Whirl mumbled, shaking his head, "Yeah, I'm good, just, like, distracted." 

"What's on your mind?"

Whirl squinted at him, and then quickly scanned the table to be sure everyone else was, indeed, still here, and he was asking that question anyway, "Why?" 

"We're all friends, I hope," Drift continued, "It just seems like something has you upset."

Whirl flicked his optic back to Megatron and away again just as quickly, then towards the two people he was sitting next to, who really, really wouldn't want him to ruin the night by getting into a fight, "Nah." 

"He's feeling stressed by my presence," Megatron supplied, and Whirl flattened his antennae in annoyance, "Don't hold it against him."

"Hey, don't patronize me," Whirl snapped, "And don't tell me how I feel." 

"Whirl, don't be rude," Tailgate hissed, "Just let it go."

"Don't tell me to let it go!" Whirl huffed, " _I_ didn't even say nothin', I ain't fighting' no one."

"Perhaps it would be better to talk about it with-" Megatron paused, " _Mediators_ present. I know you have been avoiding me, but I had wanted to tell you that I feel I placed an unfair amount of blame on you for what happened in Rodion."

Whirl stared at him, fuel burning against his intake, feeling all the optics at the table on him. "Yeah? So? What's that mean, huh?"

"I mean, I recognize that you are not wholly at fault for your actions," he continued, "That, ultimately, you were no more than a pawn for the Senate to carry out _their_ orders, and-"

"I _am not_ and _was not_ nobody's pawn!" Whirl snapped, pointing at Megatron, "Don't tell me what I did or didn't know, I won't be lectured by _you_."

"Whirl!" Tailgate hissed, grabbing Whirl's arm, only to be shaken off.

"I didn't mean to upset you," Megatron said quickly, "I meant only that I wrote in my book that _you_ were the deciding factor in shifting my focus to violence, and that was-"

"Yeah, and that put a target on my back I ain't _never_ gotten rid of!" Whirl yelled, slamming his claws on the table and standing, knocking his chair over behind him, "Your _book_ sent every Primus damned Decepticon wannabe my way to beat me near to death three times a week like clockwork! You can take your pithy platitudes and shove them up your-"

"Whirl!" Cyclonus snapped, yanking Whirl back. He hadn't realized how far across the table he was leaning, or that he had shattered his drink in his fist. Whirl stared down as his open claw, glass shards and acid mixer bubbling on his plating, and then clenched his pincers back together with a snarl.

"Forget it," he snapped, turning and shaking his claw out, "I'll see you back at the ship."

" _Whirl_!" Cyclonus yelled after him as Whirl stomped away, plating hot with shame and anger, furious with Megatron for trying to have this conversation _now_ , furious with himself for losing his temper, furious at the world in general, like always. 

"I'll go after him," he heard Tailgate say, which only made it worse. Whirl wrenched open the front door and kept walking, looking for a wide enough flat space to transform and take off from when the door opened again behind him. 

"Whirl! Whirl, just stop for a second!" 

Whirl stopped, fuming, pincers slicing together anxiously, until Tailgate reached him, grabbing a claw in his hands and stilling his nervous scissoring. 

"What is _wrong_?" he asked, and Whirl only found his genuine concern that much more infuriating. 

"It's bullshit, is what it is," he huffed, staring at the ground, "I'm being an afthole and that's all there is to it."

"Come on, we talked about this, self deprecation isn't productive," Tailgate reminded him, and Whirl groaned, turning his optic toward the sky.

"I'm not being self depicative, I'm being honest, I'm sure he's trying to be nice or whatever, but I don't want to _fucking_ hear it, because I'm an afthole and I don't _want_ to talk about this." 

"Overcharged and stressed is definitely not the time to have this conversation," Tailgate nodded, "You should have said something before you let yourself get this worked up."

"Yeah, I should have," Whirl huffed, miserably, angrily, "I didn't."

"How about I take you home, okay? We can go out tomorrow and make sure we avoid Megatron."

"No, I don't want to ruin _your_ night because I can't keep my shit together," Whirl groaned, "Go back in and tell everybody I'm gonna head in. I'll be fine."

"Come on, Whirlibird, you know I'm not gonna do that," Tailgate sighed, "I'll go back with you. It'll be okay."

"I-" Whirl fidgeted, fighting his impulse to refuse and refuse and refuse, "Okay."

"Thank you," Tailgate said, sounding relieved, "I'll comm Cyclonus and let him know we're leaving early." He tugged Whirl's claw, "We're walking, though. You're no good to fly."

"Ugh," Whirl groaned, tightening his grip on Tailgate's hand, "I could fly in my recharge. I could fly blackout drunk."

"Could is not the same as _should_ ," Tailgate chuckled, "You'll get us _both_ killed if you try."

"How I wanna go," Whirl mumbled, counting his steps so he didn't outspeed the minibot walking beside him, "Crash and burn, kaboom."

"What, with me?"

"No, I save you heroically, dying in the process," Whirl nodded, "It's very cool. They make a movie about it." 

"I'm sure," Tailgate consoled, patting him on the claw, “It was this way, right?”

“What do I know,” Whirl mumbled, “I only saw this place from above.”

“Pretty sure it was this way,” Tailgate sighed, “You know you’re gonna have to deal with Megatron eventually. You live on the same ship, you can’t just avoid him forever.”

“You underestimate me.”

“I think he _was_ trying to be nice to you,” Tailgate continued, undeterred, “Talking to him could be good, maybe. You could get some kind of closure.”

“I don’t want no closure,” Whirl argued, stumbling over a break in the pavement, “I wanna go home and go to bed.”

Tailgate snorted, “Well, we’re already doing that, aren’t we?”

“Fuck Megatron,” Whirl mumbled, tightening his grip on Tailgate’s hand, who stopped and tugged him downward.

“Fuck Megatron,” Tailgate agreed, “Come here.” Whirl leaned down and bumped the lip of his helm casing against the front of Tailgate’s mask, passing a jolt of static between them, the closest approximation to a kiss they could manage. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

“You always say that,” Whirl complained, “And you’re always right.” He paused, stood up, looked around. “I don’t think this was the right way.”

Tailgate looked around the empty street, visor dimming unhappily. “I think you’re right,” he sighed. “Come on, let’s head back the way we came.”

“Oh, forget it, let’s just fly, I’ll stay low,” Whirl rolled his optic, bent his knees and transformed, “Come on.”

“I really don’t think we should,” Tailgate hesitated, even as Whirl revved his engine and spun his rotors impatiently, “Do you have any idea what Minimus will do if he finds out I let you drunk fly around an alien planet?”

“Nothin, cuz he ain’t gonna find out,” Whirl scoffed, revving again, loudly and dramatically, “It’ll be _fine_!”

Tailgate paused, uncertainly, but climbed into Whirl’s open cockpit anyway. “Fine, but stay low, and don’t show off.”

“I never show off,” Whirl scoffed, ascending. The higher he rose the more he started to recognize the landscape and the way that they had come, “See? The ship’s back that way. We were going the totally wrong direction.”

“I blame you,” Tailgate commented, “ _You_ are the one with a built in GPS. You know I have no sense of direction.”

“Blame accepted.”

“You know, I think y-” Tailgate cut himself off when Whirl jerked forward with a bang and his engine suddenly began to stutter, “What was _that_?!”

“Uh- I don’t know-”

“Did you _hit_ something?!”

“I don’t _think_ s-”

Another bang and Whirl nosedived, hitting a radar dish on top of a short building and skidding off the roof into an alleyway, ping-ponging off the walls until he hit a dumpster and rolled onto the ground, groaning, spilling his passenger out of a damaged cockpit.

“Primus- Whirl, what was _that_?!” Tailgate gasped, clambering to his knees, “I _told_ you you weren’t good to fly!”

“Get up, _move_ ,” Whirl coughed, vocalizer glitching, “That wasn’t _me_.”

“What do you mean that wasn’t _you_?” Tailgate coughed, grabbing the dumpster to haul himself to his pedes as Whirl’s engine stalled, aborted transformation and resynced, trying again, before he managed to shift some misaligned plating out of the way and change shape.

“I mean _I_ didn’t hit something, something hit _me_ ,” Whirl scrambled to his knees, only to leap forward and tackle Tailgate to the ground as something whizzed overhead, “What the _fuck_?”

“Is someone _shooting_ at us?” Tailgate cried, struggling away from Whirl’s grip, “Cyclonus, Cyclonus, pick up, there’s-”

“No!” Whirl yelled when something hit Tailgate and sent him rolling away, and Whirl swiveled in the opposite direction, to see an alien, four armed and fleshy and wielding some kind of oversized blaster, pointed in their direction. Whirl scrambled back to his pedes and flung himself at the stranger, but the shot that hit him in the abdomen sent him falling flat on his back, spinal strut arching at the electric current that rattled his network and pushed him into an unexpected system shutdown, still scrabbling at the concrete, spitting curses.


	2. No Place Like Home

Whirl came back online the same way he always did; thrashing and screaming and ready to fight. He'd gotten pretty good at cutting that off quickly in the past few years, but the lingering effects of getting tazed offline had him flailing for more than a few seconds, looking for a target to punch. It wasn't until the panic cleared that he realized he didn't recognize the organic he'd grabbed- it had a ton of limbs, tentacles for days, but it was without doubt not of the same species as whoever had shot him down, and it wasn't fighting back, either. Whirl yanked his claws away and sat back, chassis heaving, confused.

"Tailgate!" he yelled, the first word to make it out of the unintelligible angry mush he'd been shrieking previously.

"I'm over here," a voice said behind him, and Whirl spun around, feeling his spark drop. Tailgate was pushing himself back up on one elbow, rubbing his temple where a paint transfer told Whirl he had clocked him in his spasm, "You've been out for awhile."

"He's like 47 tons and has guns in his chest," an unfamiliar voice with an unplaceable accent said, "They probably jolted him six times as much as they did you."

Whirl finally looked around what he realized now was a cell, set in stone and with blastshield doors in the front. The room was lit only by dim bulbs along the walls, and they weren't alone. The cell was loitered by aliens, unfamiliar mechanoid and organic shapes alike. Whirl scanned for the speaker and found an oversized organic that reminded him of Ravage with too many legs and eyes. 

"Oh, yeah?" Whirl said, testily, shifting back towards Tailgate, hackles raised, setting himself between the two, " _Who_ did?"

"The Vors," the feline alien explained, looking none too perturbed by Whirl's visibly threatening posture, "You know. The inhabitants of the planet you're on?"

"I don't know shit about this planet," Whirl scoffed, "Don't know shit about gettin' tazed by no Vors."

"Lovely," the cat rolled over, "You'll go early, then." 

"Early for what?" 

Tailgate shoved past Whirl's defensive posturing and stood up. "It's a gladiator pit," he explained, "Like they used to have in Kaon."

Whirl cursed. 

"At least one of you is paying attention," the cat said, shutting all of its eyes, "You've not got much time left. They run games like clockwork. When those doors open," he said, flicking his tail toward the blast door, "The round begins, and does not end until half the competitors are dead. There's twenty, by the way, I assume your kind can do basic division." 

"What about escape?" Tailgate asked, while Whirl stared at the ceiling, running calculations on the material density and integrated munition storage, "Hasn't anyone tried?"

"Oh, sure," said the cat, "They put an explosive round in whatever they thought was your head, though, and if you leave the Colosseum, it automatically goes off, so, if you would like to try, by all means, it makes for fewer mechanoids I have to face in the future. No offense, but you're all infuriatingly difficult to kill." 

"None taken," Whirl mumbled, narrowing his optics at the less than ideal numbers, "I get that a lot, actually."

"I'm sure Cyclonus got my message before I went offline-" Tailgate said, putting a hand on Whirl's arm, "He'll come."

"No one is coming for you, little robot," the cat yawned, "You live here until you die. That's how it is. There's no winning, there's no escaping, there's no rescuing anyone."

"How long have you been here?"

"Two weeks," the cat said, rolling its shoulders, "I suspect I have at least one more in me before I go the way of the rest."

"That's horrible!" Tailgate gasped, and Whirl noted the way eyes and optics in the room were watching them, specifically watching _Tailgate_ , who was reacting emotionally, in shock and horror, naive and rational to the concept of gladiatorial combat. Whirl shifted forward, flaring his winglets up and revving his engine, pulling their attention to him wordlessly. He had no idea if any of these species could read EM fields but he flared his anyway, hot and dangerous, laced with _I have killed before and I will not hesitate to kill again,_ narrowing his optic to a pinprick. 

"Primus," Tailgate flinched, snapping his head back to look at Whirl, "What are you _doing_?" 

"Shh," Whirl shushed him, vocalizer fighting the synthesized sound it was not designed to produce, "Don't make yourself a target."

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" Tailgate hissed, visibly offended. 

"He means don't look so horrified by violence," the cat snorted, sounding amused, "You give yourself away as an easy mark.

"We are not participating in _bloodsport_ \- Whirl, we are not-" Tailgate stopped, staring at him, "Wow, you _are_ , aren't you? You're already looking around and deciding who to kill."

Whirl pulled his optic away from doing precisely that, to stare at him, his silence its own admission. 

"This is sick," Tailgate spat, pulling away and sitting back against the wall, "They can't _force_ us to fight." 

"Don't fight, then," the cat shrugged, "Die."

"Do you have a name?" Tailgate asked, ignoring the statement, "Or should I just call you the cynical cat guy with too many eyes and a bad attitude?" 

The cat rolled over and eyed him lazily, flicking his tail, "Raizr, not that it matters."

"I'm Tailgate," said Tailgate, "and he's Whirl."

"Mechanoids always have such strange names," said Raizr, rolling back over, "I suggest you get ready, Tailgate. You've got less than an hour to live."

Tailgate was silent for a moment, before he shifted, scooting back over to sit beside Whirl, who was crouching like an irate vulture, plating still flared, and lowered his voice to a whisper, "The plan is escape, right? _Not_ kill strangers?"

"The plan is get you home safely," Whirl hissed back. 

"Whirl, we _aren't_ going to kill strangers, are we?" Tailgate insisted, irately, "and we are _both_ getting home safely, _right_?"

Whirl glanced back at him, pausing, "Right. We're both getting home safely."

"Whirl, we _aren't_ -"

"Fine, _we_ aren't killing strangers," Whirl hissed, " _I_ will kill strangers."

Tailgate's visor dimmed, visibly upset, and he turned away, silent. Whirl sat back on his haunches, shifting his cockpit alignment so he could straighten out one of his chest guns that had bent when he crashed, realigning the barrel and snapping it back into place with a crack that made Tailgate wince, even if he didn't comment on it. 

"Cyclonus will figure something out," Tailgate said, without turning around, "You'll see."

"Sure," Whirl said, absently, counting ammo in his cockpit and looking up at the other fighters in the room, filing away notes and calculations, before he turned his helm toward Raizr, "There ain't twenty in here. What's the rules on shooting people before the game starts?"

"Whirl!" Tailgate gasped, furious.

"Oh, there's a ten second head start after the bell rings," Razr yawned, "if you try to kill anyone outside of active combat in the pit they will just taze you again. From the floor, they won't actually come in, so don't get too excited. There's one other cell, when you see the Colosseum you'll see the door. They've got it set up so that there's a good variety of cover types, different locations and what have you. Whole thing is rigged with cameras."

"What about flying? What's the rules on flying?" 

"You can fly as high as the walls go, but there's an electricity grid above that."

"Whirl, are you being serious right now?" Tailgate grabbed his arm and yanked it, demanding he be addressed, and Whirl turned to him, about to argue further, when all three of them looked up as a whirring sound began in the ceiling. Raizr stood up and stretched on his six legs, lashing his tail.

"That's the door. It's time." 

"Whirl- we _aren't_ going to kill innocent people," Tailgate said, more forcibly, and Whirl rose to his feet, not looking at him. 

"Stay with me," he said, ignoring him. The blast door shifted, beginning to roll upward, and the rest of their cellmates stood, tense and silent. 

Tailgate grabbed him by the cockpit and _yanked_ down, making Whirl look at him. "Whirl, _listen_ to me. I know you feel like you always have to make the hard decisions no one else can, you have to do the morally ambiguous thing so no one else has to but you _know_ it isn't good for you, you _don't_ have to play by their rules. We are _not_ going to kill strangers. We don't have to kill, we just have to survive the round."

Whirl looked back up at the doors rolling up, squinting as the light pouring in beneath it revealed a colosseum pit, absolutely massive and filled with a variety of terrain types, crumbled structures, forested hillscapes and ominous aquatic depths, and then back at Tailgate, "Fine. We'll do it your way. For now."

Tailgate sagged, visor brightening in relief, "Thank you."

"You stick with me though," Whirl said, picking the minibot up under one arm with a squeak, "I got you."

"I know that-" Tailgate said, struggling to right himself in Whirl's grip, "But _don't_ think I can't take care of myself, same as you c-" 

A buzzer blared like a death siren and Whirl transformed, flipping Tailgate directly into his cockpit and rocketing past the cell's entrance into the arena, twisting past a potshot and aiming for the high ground on the concrete structure against the other side of the arena. Something _big_ hit him in the side before he reached it, and dragged him to the ground, spinning and sputtering. Whirl transformed, grabbing for Tailgate and missing, and with a yelp of surprise, the minibot rolled two more times and splashed into the water.

" _Tailgate_!" Whirl yelled, just as a fist connected with his helm and smashed it into the ground. Tailgate was going to have to get out of the water on his own.

With a shriek of fury, Whirl surged upwards, into a blue-grey rock creature, ramming himself head and shoulders into what he assumed was it's abdomen, taking it back down to the ground, and fired off a volley of blasts from his cockpit guns, but the bullets glanced off its stone skin. He was confident switching to energon rounds would do more damage, but he had no idea if he was going to be fed again or not, and didn't want to waste any more fuel than absolutely necessary just yet. He changed tactics and grabbed the thing around it's shoulder joint, locking his pincers and slamming a pede into its chest for leverage, and _pulled._

It's arm wrenched free with a horrible noise Whirl never wanted to be privy to again, but without pause he used the creature's immediate anguish as a distraction to grab it's head, and-

"Whirl!" 

Whirl froze, claws on his enemy's stone skull, suddenly reminded he had _just_ promised Tailgate not to do exactly what he was doing, and Whirl did something wholly unlike him, something entirely antithetical to his nature: he _hesitated._

In the next moment the behemoth's remaining arm connected with Whirl's torso and sent him flying. He skidded across the stone ground, dimly aware of the din of combat beyond his own around him, trying desperately to scrub his HUD clean of warnings that were getting in the way- his operating system had never quite figured out that he didn't need or want to know what was broken unless it was about to get fixed, the _only_ thing that needed to exist in his world right now was what he needed to kill. Only, he wasn't supposed to be killing, and that left him completely adrift, without direction, without intention, without a fucking clue what to do-

The next hit came down on his back and his HUD shook, clearing all the previous warnings to give him one big new one regarding his spinal strut, but he tossed that one off screen, too, and rolled over, shaking energon from his helm casing. 

"Get _up_ , Whirl!" 

Whirl got up just as Tailgate used the rock creature's own arm as a weapon and swept it's legs out from under it and sent it crashing to the ground. Whirl swayed on his pedes, suddenly wishing he hadn't deleted that warning without reading it first, uncertain what he was supposed to be compensating for, exactly. 

There was a chime overhead and Whirl glanced up- beneath the domed steel ceiling there was a visible electricity grid, and below that, floating camera drones with ominous red lights beside their recording irises. Beyond the net, however, displayed against the inside slope of the dome was a scoreboard, reading 16/20. Another chime, and it ticked down again to 15/20.

"What the hell was that?" Tailgate yelled, and Whirl snapped his optic back down, skittering past the rock alien, "You _froze_!" 

"You told me I couldn't kill anybody!" Whirl snapped, "Come on, we need to get and hold the high ground." 

"Don't kill anybody doesn't mean _get killed_ " Tailgate swore, legs working overtime to keep up, and Whirl grabbed him by the back plating as he broke for the concrete structure he had originally been aiming for.

"So I stalled! Cut me some slack, I'm kind of making it up as I go along here!" 

There was another chime overhead and Whirl skidded to a halt in front of the tower, dropping Tailgate back on his pedes. 

"The roof?" Tailgate asked.

"Second floor from the top," Whirl corrected, "bottleneck 'em at the stairs if you can, and-" Whirl snapped his cockpit open and pried out the seat, tossing it to the side and retrieving the emergency revolver he kept stashed, tossing it to his partner, "Hold it." 

"Got it," Tailgate went first, taking stairs three at a time as he scurried up. Whirl hung behind when he realized he had caught the attention of a passing organic, the tentacle thing he had woken up and tried to strangle earlier. He eyed it warily, uncertain if he should consider it a genuine threat or not- it was so much smaller than him. One of its tentacles brushed a bit of debris on the ground that went up in smoke. Ah- electric. His favourite. 

Whirl's optic flicked up to the scoreboard again, but it remained at 15/20. He turned back to the organic, watching him. 

[Tailgate,] he commed internally, without moving.

[I thought you were behind me! What are you doing??]

[ _Please_ give me permission to kill this guy,] Whirl commed back, counting ammo again, like clockwork, trying to pinpoint what parts of this thing we're most likely vitals, how he could take it down when he knew he couldn't let it _touch_ him-

[You don't need my _permission_ to do whatever you want.]

There was another chime overhead, breaking the tension like a hammer through a pane of glass, and the organic came at him, undulating around its baseform, tentacles whipping wild. Whirl fired wide, sheering one off but wholly missing vitals and transformed, taking off vertically to try and clear it's strike range and failing when it managed to clip his stabilizing blade, but all it needed was a graze to send a powerful enough jolt through him that he crashed again, landing on the edge of the water and he scrabbled desperately at stone to keep from going in. He fired off another shot at the tentacle-thing, and even hitting it in the thickest point of one of its limbs didn't deter it.

Whirl was pretty genuinely surprised by the noise he made when one of its electrified arms wrapped around his throat. As far as he had been aware, he could only produce a single note, which made inflection kind of a pain in the aft, but he was running through an entire leaf of sheet music the way his vocalizer was glitching and spitting and sputtering. His HUD flashed a cacophony of redundancies, _begging_ him to do the only thing he'd ever done well, screen tearing and misaligning, feedback loops smashing into each other and overloading virtual memory until he was sure his brain was going to explode, and then-

And then, mercifully, it stopped, and a chime sounded overhead as Whirl collapsed on the shore, gasping, to his knees, fighting to realign broken codestrings. 

"Okay, I take it back," Tailgate said, pulling him shakily back to his pedes, pistol still in his hand, "You're allowed to kill people. _Primus_ , Whirl."

"Cool," Whirl slurred, rising back to his full height, wavering like a stiff breeze might knock him over. He groaned when he saw over the crest of the hill the approach of the rock-thing, having apparently reattached its arm and rallied for another go. Whirl glanced back up at the counter after another chime sent it down to 12/20.

"Can I kill the rock guy?" Whirl asked, vocalizer continuing to hike its pitch up and down, warbling like a spinning top.

"You can kill the rock guy."

"Cool," said Whirl, and tackled the rock guy.

One smashed cockpit later and he had liberated the giant's head from its body, but he still stared up at the scoreboard as the creature crumbled to be sure the number counted down, that he didn't have to do more. Non-organic life really could be a bitch to kill sometimes. Mercifully, he was rewarded with a chime, and the number went down to 11/20, and then again, to 10/20, when he spotted an organic in the distance and nailed him with a potshot.

The following sound was some kind of announcement Whirl couldn't begin to translate, and then an absolutely bizarre chime of bells that sounded more like it belonged to that stupid gun Brainstorm made for Swerve than it did to announce the end of a round of bloodsports. Whirl was surprised how quickly the whole thing had gone by, but sagged in relief, as the rush began to wane and the pain he'd been ignoring began to run its course.

"Hey!" said a voice with an unplaceable accent, and Whirl looked up to see Raizr standing on the crest of the center hill, looking down at them, "You've got two minutes before they zap you if you don't go back in." He flicked his tail, and then turned and left.

"Uh, I guess we should go back, then," said Whirl, stumbling around the corpse of the rock-thing. 

"Right," said Tailgate, absently, following him back. They must have been the last ones to stumble inside, because the blast doors rolled shut behind them, and Whirl had to reset his optic twice to get it to read at the right light density. He picked a corner and collapsed in it, feeling like he'd gained another 47 tons in the last ten minutes. 

"Congratulations on surviving your first day," said Raizr, curling up nearby and setting his face on his front paws, "I didn't expect the little one to make it."

"Touch him and I'll rip your spine out through your mouth," Whirl mumbled, halfheartedly, thumbing through a damage report in his HUD, unhappy with the results. 

Raizr laughed, a chuffing sound that rolled through his organic body like a wave, "I'll remember that." 

"Whirl, sit up," Tailgate said, pushing him back, and Whirl did as he was told, while tiny hands tested structural integrity against his warped cockpit, "This has to hurt."

"Mmf," he confirmed, "There's, uh-" he scanned the damage report again, "Tertiary fuel line severed." He rapped the side of his chest plating under his arm, "Here."

"I'll cauterize it," Tailgate said, quietly, and Whirl stared at the ceiling while the minibot pried the plating off. 

"Does that hurt?" asked Raizr, curiously.

"No," Whirl lied. 

"Hm," the cat hummed, and then turned over and away. 

"Don't spiral," Tailgate said, gently, "They'll come for us." 

"Right," said Whirl. 

"Birdy," Tailgate said, pulling his hands out of Whirl's internals and taking his helm in his palms, visor dim in the low light but earnest nonetheless, "We're going to be okay. Don't lose hope."

"Okay," he said, pathetically.

Tailgate paused. "If I hadn't said you were allowed to kill that guy," his visor dimmed further, field tumbling concern and apprehension, "Would you have just let him kill you?" 

Whirl twitched, antennae ticking like a broken clock hand. "I wouldn't have killed him." 

Tailgate's hands shifted, optical display unreadable, and he dipped back down to reaffix Whirl's side panel to his chest. His hands lingered there, uncertain, before he spoke again. 

"If I panic, you're going to spiral, and then we'll _both_ be fucked," he said, shakily, "But I gotta tell you, Birdy, I _really_ wanna panic right now." 

Whirl's spark stuttered and pitched and he _clamped_ down his feelings as if he were punching someone's jaw into the dirt, and dragged the minibot into his lap, shoving his helm into his shoulder, as close as they could get with all his gangly pointy bits. 

"You're right," Whirl exvented, watching the other two remaining aliens in their cell, another bipedal mechanoid, bigger than he was and smaller organic creature that shifted, eyeless but watching, "It's going to be fine. We'll figure something out." 

"Cyclonus will come," Tailgate said, like a prayer. 

"Cyclonus will come," Whirl repeated, like a lie.


	3. Truth or Dare

Whirl pretended to recharge in his alt mode. He was already a difficult mech to read, but he was intimately aware that organics and non-transforming mechinae couldn't tell a Cybe's alt mode from a dumb hunk of dead metal if their life depended on it. It also meant he could get Tailgate off the floor to recharge in what was left of his cockpit, even if he'd already dumped the seat. First Aid was gonna be pissed, that was his _least_ favourite thing to replace. 

Whirl pretended to recharge, but he was too tightly coiled to bother. He knew who and what he was and knew there was no point in trying to avoid falling back on old habits. "Maladaptive" they call your behaviour, when it isn't actively keeping you alive, so they train it out of you and leave you adrift when the world goes turrets up again, like it always does. 

That is to say, he'd stay up for two or three days, wired and panicky, until exhaustion or a fist finally knocked him out for a few hours, and then he would do it again. Day two he'd be paranoid, day three he would be on a hairpin trigger, and if he hit day four, if he was lucky, he'd get some really cool hallucinations he wouldn't be able to remember clearly later. He wasn't quite on day two yet, but he was already paranoid. 

The other mechanoid, as far as Whirl could figure, was non-transforming. They were big, though, as big as him but filled out with the brawn of any standard Cube, contrary to Whirl's skinny flight frame. He could throw a punch, but only because he was bigger than everybody else. Against an opponent his own size, he was positively scrawny. That guy was out. To be avoided.

The other organic was smaller by far, more around Tailgate's size, but something about it was off-putting. The thing crawled around on four two long limbs, oily grey-peach skin stretched over bones with little muscle to be seen, but it's eyeless head stretched over _far_ too many teeth. It gave Whirl a bad vibe. He did not know what it could do but wasn't particularly excited to find out. He had not seen Raizr fight, but he had been here for two weeks, so he couldn't be a slouch, and he was bigger than Tailgate by far and rippling with muscle beneath the fur.

All in all, the two organics were his best bet, from what he could see here. He had no idea what was in the other cell, or what would be replacing today's dead tomorrow, but the odds were starting to claw at him, as he cycled again through fuel calculations, wall density renders, ammo counts and sensornet capacity vectors. The numbers, again, came up wanting. 

Cyclonus was, most likely, not coming.

If anyone came it would be Rodimus, having figured out where they were, purchasing them back from whatever backwater slaver planet they had been stupid enough to dock on. Money, however, was a problem, considering shanix was no longer an acceptable form of currency at any planet they had stopped at since they began their stint in the new universe, leaving Drift, for the first time in a very long time, completely broke, and the crew without a bankrolling benefactor. Their stash of Universally Traded Creditry was never particularly impressive, and Whirl knew what slaves generally went for, especially on planets where it was, apparently, acceptable to just take people off the street. Keeping his market value down would be an easier thing to do if he had more wiggle room to hold back, but with Tailgate here, he was already going to have to make up for a staggering lack of combat experience. 

Things were looking grim. Maybe Brainstorm could figure out a way to hack into and shut down their grid, or maybe someone would be brave enough to try to convey to Sparky what they _wanted_ without him around, though he doubted they would unleash her on even a slave trading planet without him there to keep her from going feral. She didn't listen to anyone but him and, on a good day, Riptide. Maybe Megatron would- or maybe _Drift_ would barge in, swords going wild, right through a wall, and show off why everyone used to be so scared of him.

It was all pretty unlikely to happen now, at least. He was sure they wouldn't give up until he and Tailgate were beyond rescuing, Whirl had that much faith in them, at least, but they would have to survive long enough to get rescued, and days here seemed extremely numbered. For now he would watch for openings, stay alive, and hope someone outside figured out a better plan than he could. 

Tailgate was going to be pissed at him if they got out of this. He could feel _it_ clawing at the back of his mind, all the things he'd packed up and put away and tried so hard to _stop fucking doing_ all the time, all the "maladaptive" coping mechanisms, all the "self-destructive thought structures" and "hypervigilence" and "reactive behavioural patterns," all the things he knew how to do as easily as changing shape that he was _not supposed to do._

But those old tools were going to get him to tomorrow, and the day after that if they needed to, and no matter how pissed anyone would be at him for failing to keep a set standard and not immediately crumble in the face of the slightest adversity, at least he would have time to recover. Again. Not that it ever took. 

One of the organics rolled over in its sleep and Whirl's engine rolled back in response, agitated. He hated this. He felt twitchy. He should have downloaded a book to his hard system like Cyclonus always told him he should do, literally in case he was stuck in a dumb situation like this. He didn't even like books. 

Eventually the lights went up a notch from dim to dull, and there was a new whirring in the ceiling that caught Whirl's attention, and had him nudging Tailgate awake with a steering console. 

"Hey. Catboy. What is that?" Whirl asked, as Raizr stretched and yawned and sat up. 

"Breakfast," the cat responded, "And lunch, and dinner. They only feed us once a day." 

Whirl added that to his already ragged calculations and began running them again. 

A square section of the ceiling peeled away and a platform lowered, carrying on it a variety of especially interesting goodies that had Whirl impatient for Tailgate to climb down so he could transform and investigate. By the time he was in his root mode, the other cellmates had approached the platform and begun to remove it's prizes and set them on the floor. 

The other mechanoid picked up two cubes of energon, inspected them with a visor-plate face (that meant that's where it stored its optical sensors) before looking up at him. "Do you process this fuel?" It's speech was disjointed, clearly cut together pre-recordings. Whirl wondered what it's native language was, and if it was more mechanically based. He flared his field experimentally and did not see a reaction. Well, not from the stranger, Tailgate turned to stare at him in confusion. 

"Yeah," Whirl answered, accepting the cubes from them. He handed one to Tailgate and stared down at it, fuel tank turning anxiously. Two standard sized rations. That was not especially good.

Tailgate generally took three quarters to one full standard sized cube for optimal functioning daily, his frame made to make fuel last, but Whirl was a high performance combat flight frame, built to gas guzzle with abandon. He usually took two cubes a day, if not more. He couldn't just ignore it, he knew Tailgate knew his fuel consumption, he'd spent too many mornings lazing about in berth and begging to be coddled. Tailgate knew what he took. 

"Half for you, one and a half for me," Whirl said, making a decision before Tailgate could. Whirl wondered if he would argue, fight him on this, but he didn't. 

"What about- um, them?" Tailgate asked, pointing at the skinny organic thing with too many teeth that was pacing in the corner. 

"Oh, she absorbs life energy directly," Raizr explained, biting into what Whirl suspected was some kind of animal leg, "She feeds during the matches." 

"Eugh," said Whirl.

"Strange reaction," Raizr observed, "Her species is usually regarded with more reverence."

"Not by mine," Whirl responded, untabbing his wrist intake, "Can she not talk?"

"Not in any language you could speak."

"Right," said Whirl, watching the thing as she paced back and forth against the wall, sniffing, though he didn't see a nose. 

"My name is R48," said R48, holding what Whirl scanned as low-combustion universal fuel. Fairly standard for low-age mechanoid races. Most likely under a century old. He didn't like that, didn't like knowing that or their names. It was dangerous to sympathize. 

“I’m Tailgate, and this is Whirl,” Tailgate said, crossing his legs and unfolding his own intake, “We’re Cybertronians.”

“I am an R-type Constructbot,” explained R48, “Built to assist with terraforming originally.”

“Throw off the shackles of AI oppression, eh?” Whirl asked, nursing his cube.

“No, job was completed successful.”

“Oh,” said Whirl, “Alright.”

"You look much similar to Chopper," R48 said, gesturing to Whirl, "You have seen him?"

"Who?"

"He's in the other cell," Raizr explained, "He also turns into a helicopter. Black plating, very quiet. He was already here when I arrived."

"I guess he might also be a Cybertronian," Whirl fielded, "We have a few standardized frame types."

“What is a Cybertronian?” R48 asked, and Whirl noted the recording for the word had come directly from him.

“Transforming mechanical race from the planet Cybertron,” Tailgate explained, “We’re blacklisted by the galactic council- uh, at least in our home galaxy, we’re a little ways away from there though.”

“At least,” Whirl mumbled.

"You are very far from home," R48 nodded. 

Whirl didn't miss the twitch in Tailgate's frame or the dimming of his visor, so he changed the subject. "So, what, do they just take people off the street around here?" 

Raizr flicked his tail and tilted his head at him, "Only if you've broken a law."

"I didn't break any laws," Whirl scoffed, "they attacked me for no reason!" 

Raizr looked him up and down for a moment before commenting again, "Were you flying in restricted airspace?"

Whirl froze. "Uh," he said, uncertainly. 

"The Vors are an insectoid race," said Raizr, blinking his many eyes, "They have a long and violent history with avianoid predators. They're very strict about flying in residential areas." 

"...Uh," said Whirl, again, as his vision began to tunnel, restricting to a pinprick, the cube in his claws suddenly the only thing that existed in the world. 

This was _his fault_.

He realized he had forgotten to cycle air through his frame and puffed through his vents when Tailgate put a hand on his arm, silent, grounding. He softened, winglets sinking, slowing his vent cycle.

"So are you two together, or what?" asked Raizr, casually. 

Tailgate sat up straighter and started to respond, but Whirl cut him off, flaring his plating and rolling forward, threat in his posture.

" _No_ ," he snarled, "Our species doesn't do that."

[Whirl what the _fuck_ ,] Tailgate immediately commed him, flabbergasted. 

[Don't give them leverage,] Whirl commed back, 

"Your species is very close, then," Raizr commented with a flick of one scarred ear, "Mine is often the same." 

"Yeah," said Whirl.

[I don't like this.]

[Too bad.]

He ignored Tailgate's field and the undisguised offense within it, finishing his cube and retreating back to his corner of the cell, fiddling with his comm again, searching for a signal while he watched the others, the way they moved and perceived, logging, cataloguing, notating. 

"Your species is close, then?" Tailgate asked, turning to Raizr, and pointedly not retreating with Whirl to the corner, to his dismay. 

"We are very social, my kind," Raizr sighed, "We don't do well separated from our pods. Low level telepaths, as it were, it's very stressful not to be in contact with others."

"This must be really awful for you," Tailgate said, softly. 

"I was always a bit of a loner, so I suppose I'm faring better than most might in my place. I am certain my pod is struggling without me, though, as it is. I can almost feel them, I think, sometimes." 

Tailgate was quiet for a period. "I'm sorry," he said, eventually. "I've left someone behind outside, too. I worry for him."

"If there is any luck in the world, he will not see the games broadcast and will not have to witness what will come," the organic said softly, rising to set his head in Tailgate's lap, "Benevolent Goddess willing, he will find a new pod." 

Tailgate hesitated, before he put a hand on the back of Raizr's neck and pet down his fur, and the cat sighed, gratefully. "Yeah," Tailgate said, sullen. 

[You're getting attached. If something happens to him it's only going to hurt worse,] Whirl commed. Tailgate paused in his motions, and then continued.

[It should hurt. People deserve to be mourned and missed.]

[He's not a people. He's a stranger. Organic. We don't know him.]

[We do know him. We just met him. None of us want to be here.]

[And if he tries to kill you later?]

[Then I guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it, huh?]

Tailgate tilted his helm back to glare at him and Whirl flared his plating again, irate, agitated, frustrated. He knew he was being petty. But this was going to go poorly. 

There was a shifting noise overhead and the blast shield door began to raise. Everyone in the room froze.

"It hasn't been a full day yet," said Whirl, "I thought you said these ran like clockwork?" 

"They do," said Raizr, standing up and thrashing his tail, "This is new."

Whirl tensed, rising to his feet, even if he wasn't able to stand at his full height under the low ceiling, waiting for the buzzer, claws itching to reach again for Tailgate but frozen with anticipation. The buzzer did not sound.

One of the overhead lights, which had been dim until this moment, lit up like a spotlight over Whirl. 

Whirl snapped his helm up, staring directly into it, vision constricting, the sound of fuel rushing past his audials thumping like a bass boosted ticking clock, claws tightening into an approximation of a fist. 

"No, no," Tailgate's voice said, somewhere, "What is that? Why is it doing that? Whirl, Whirl, don't-"

Whirl didn't hear the rest, and instead stepped out of the cell into the arena, rising up to his full height. The door shut behind him.

On the opposite side of the field, the other blast doors were closing, too. Standing outside them was a stranger, but with a familiar look to him that made Whirl immediately uncomfortable. He was definitely Cybertronian, probably with the same base protoform as his own, but without four million years worth of frame changes. He looked like an antique, black plating covered in silver scars, single red optic watching him, unblinking. 

If Whirl had had the time to wonder where this Universe had diverged from their previous one to result in someone so similar to himself ending up so far from home, he might have. He might have, if he had given himself the ability to do so, even felt bad for the stranger- pity, empathy, kinship, even. 

Whirl didn't let himself feel any of that. There was a blast door behind him and behind that was someone he loved, and beyond that, beyond the walls of this hell-spawned pit, someone else, and they were the only two people in the universe he was allowed to care about right now. There was no room left in his spark for this stranger or his single red optic or his own tense claws at his sides. There was no room for anything but _the anger._

The buzzer rang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet the last thing you expected to see in a fanfic was a fucking converters reference huh lmao


	4. So it goes

Whirl had been forged to fight from the moment he first saw the Cybertronian sky above him. He had been trained in the Aerial Corps, given all the skills the old Cybertronian military could drill into his brain, and they had expected that would be all he would have ever needed. No one had looked at Whirl in his earliest years or any years after and had seen an aptitude for anything but killing. He had found it himself, in clocks, in gears, in time and in creating something small and beautiful and unique. When he realized that he was able to do more than kill, the world has seen fit to remind him that it didn't matter how good he _was_ at anything else: he was made to kill, and it would be the only thing he would ever be permitted to do. So he had learned to kill again, and again, and again, for the Aerial Corps, for food, for Kroma, for the Senate, for the Autobots, for Rodimus. Whirl was good at killing, and it was the only thing anyone ever needed him for.

He transformed as soon as the buzzer sounded and shot upward, dipping to fire off a volley of energon rounds at his opponent, who immediately rolled out of the way into his own transformation and fired back. Whirl didn't often get as many opportunities to engage in altmode dogfights as he did hand to hand (ha) combat, but that didn't mean he wasn't any good at it. He'd had plenty of practice. 

They spun around the arena, breakneck, spiralling around each other as they tried to dip behind and fire forwards, narrowly missing each other as they darted in and out, leaving smoke trails like DNA strands. Whirl got sick of wasting fuel first, and on their next round of chicken, instead of dodging, he transformed mid air and slammed into the enemy's fuselage, wrenching it backwards and throwing him directly off his flight plan. 

He didn't have time for any cool one liners before they spiralled into the ground and he lost his grip in the chaos, skittering away as the stone erupted beneath them, buckling beneath their combined force and weight. Whirl pulled himself back to his pedes and cursed when he realized he had bent both of his stabilizing winglets on his shoulders, jammed backward and crumpled like paper against his back, making it impossible to move his arms without jamming the ends into his plating, digging painfully against the protoform. 

He was running through an emergency diagnostic when he saw the black copter stagger to his feet in root mode at the center of the crater they'd made, surrounded by billowing smoke.

"I haven't seen a Cybertronian in millenia," said the copter, optic dilating and reopening, "I had believed we were mostly extinct."

"Shows how much you know," Whirl snapped, running through his diagnostic for internal damage, because _something_ hurt, "cuz here I am, huh?"

"Answer me this, stranger," the black copter stood, flaring his rotors to shake out the debris, "Does Petrohex still stand?"

"Sure," Whirl said. It was sort of a lie, but also, he had no idea what happened to _this_ guy's Petrohex, and even back in his old Universe there was at least one Petrohex still standing. 

The copter sagged for a moment, looking relieved, "Thanks." 

He launched forward again at Whirl, in his root mode, going for a tackle. Whirl had time to see it coming, though, and swung himself to the side, just in time for the other to throw his momentum into a round kick that took Whirl's ankles out from under him. He tumbled backward, slamming down on his back and immediately kicking upward with his overlong legs, nailing the stranger in the shoulder hard enough to send him reeling while Whirl got back to his feet and slammed a fist into his helm. 

The stranger- Chopper, R48 had said?- spun, grabbing Whirl's wrist in his other claw as he did and throwing him like a sack of bricks. Whirl tucked his helm and rolled and only felt kibble snap and break off, but nothing too important. Back on his pedes his claws floated in front of him, panting, staring at his opponent, doing the same, waiting for him to make the first move.

"You think they just don't want two fighters that look so similar?" Whirl laughed, after a moment, twitching, "bad for ratings?"

"I s'pose,” Chopper answered coolly, rolling his shoulders back, “They certainly didn’t throw your wee Conjunx in here today.”

Whirl stiffened, prickling, “He ain’t my-”

“Save it. You can’t lie to _me_ , it’s all over your _face,_ ” Chopper snickered, gesturing at Whirl's lack thereof, “I saw you fighting Pulver-Eyes yesterday. All he had to do was say your name and you _froze_.”

“Well,” said Whirl, leaning forward on one pede, dipping his helm, “He ain’t here now, is he?”

“No,” said Chopper, “He’s not.”

They didn’t talk after that. Whirl moved first and accepted a punch to the chest that buckled his fuselage inward and left Chopper open on his left side as he swung his arm wide, and Whirl wrapped his claws around his enemy's elbow, above the rotor housing and wrenched it off. Two days and he'd ripped off two arms. He was thinking about starting a collection. 

Chopper shrieked and reeled back and Whirl did not let up, throwing himself against the other helicopter and tackling him to the ground, bringing his claws together and smashing them downward through the other's cockpit. He raised his arms and brought them down again and again, breaking through plating and tearing through wiring, until the base of the cockpit split like a melon in two, and Whirl grabbed what lay beyond in his claws: the other Cybertronian's spark chamber. 

Chopper started screaming, and Whirl pulled until it gave, ripping out couplings and snapping pistons like toothpicks, splattered with energon, until the screaming stopped. 

Whirl sat on the motionless Chopper's abdomen, his own chest heaving as his vents flared and cycled cool air through his overheating frame, frenzied and frantic. He dropped the empty spark chamber as it went dark, and it rolled away, silent. Black plating faded to grey, and above him, the speaker chimed merrily that the match was over. 

Whirl stood, dripping viscera like he had been swimming in it, as the door to his cell began to roll upward again. He watched as it rose up and revealed, standing with his hands over his faceplate, Tailgate, staring at him. For a moment Whirl didn't move, as if he had forgotten how to do so, before he stumbled, righted himself, and walked back inside the cell, past tailgate, back to his corner, and collapsed on his aft. The door shut behind him.

"Whirl…" he heard Tailgate whisper, horrified. Whirl crossed his legs and stared into the corner, waiting for the energon on his armor to dry.

"Don't touch me," he mumbled, half aware, optic dilated all the way open. 

"Birdy-" Tailgate said, voice so tender it _hurt_ to hear, hand reaching for him, and Whirl flared his field as strongly as he could along with his plating, sending out a roiling wave of _ANGER DO NOT TOUCH ANGER._

Tailgate wrenched his hand away and stumbled backwards as if struck. He stood, frozen, by all appearances caught between desire both to stay and to go, before he stepped back and sat down a few metres away. Whirl laid his plating flat and pulled his field in tight, coiled against his protoform. 

They didn't talk after that.

* * *

When the ceiling churned again and the blast doors began to rise, Whirl stood again for the first time in hours.

"They didn't dump any new prisoners," Tailgate said, watching the doors roll upward. 

"No," said Raizr, morosely, "They didn't."

"Do we halve our numbers again?" asked R48.

"Presumably," said Raizr. 

"Oh, Primus," whispered Tailgate, "There's only nine of us left, though." 

"I am sorry, then, to all of you," said Raizr, "May all be by the will of the Benevolent Goddess."

Whirl picked up Tailgate and hefted him under one arm despite his cry of protest.

"I can walk!" he snapped, struggling, but Whirl didn't release him or otherwise respond, until the buzzer sounded, and he took off running. 

This time Whirl aimed for a rocky area much closer to their cell where slabs of stone provided horizontal cover he could exploit, skidding behind a slab wide and tall enough to cover both him and the minibot and near enough the outer wall he didn't feel any more exposed than he had to be.

"Watch my back," Whirl said, voice hoarse with static, holding out one claw. 

"You _don't_ have to pick me up and drag me everywhere," Tailgate snapped, even as he handed him his gun, "I can _walk._ "

"My legs are longer. I'm faster than you are."

"I know, I-" Tailgate watched their flank as the sound of fighting began somewhere else, a snarl and a shriek, "It's going to be okay, Whirl. We're going to get through this, together."

" _You're_ getting through this, one way or another," said Whirl, claws on the gun, poking his optic over their cover only as much as necessary.

"Don't say that," Tailgate snapped, fighting the urge to turn around, "Do _not_ spiral, Whirl, I _need_ you h-"

"You _need_ to stay focused and you _need_ to stay alive," Whirl said, without moving "I got engine damage. I can't transform."

"That's not fatal, you don't _need_ t-"

"If you die, tell me what happens," Whirl said, optic steady as he watched the crest of the center hill, hoping against hope someone would show their skull. Overhead, there was a chime. "What happens to Cyclonus? You think he copes with that?"

Tailgate felt adrift, wished he had his own gun, wished he was home in bed, wished this stranger he was with was his Whirlibird again. "He can't lose you, either, Whirl."

"You know he can," Whirl hissed, and when R48 ran across the breadth of the hill, he pulled the trigger, and the mech's head burst, sending gears and circuitry flying. "He can live without me. He _can't_ live without you."

Tailgate froze at the chime that followed Whirl's shot, giving a full body shudder, before he snapped around and grabbed his Conjunx Endura by the arm and yanked him down to look at him.

"You have to _stop_!" Tailgate pleaded, "You can't let this- you can't let this take over you, I _need_ you here with me, Birdy, I-" 

"Get down!" Whirl yelled, and threw himself on top of Tailgate, just as something dark and heavy landed on top of them. 

Tailgate watched in horror as Whirl was yanked back, spinal strut arching painfully, Raizr's jaws clamped on his throat. Whirl desperately tried to shove him away, angle making it nearly impossible for him to get any leverage, claws weakly grabbing at the panther's mouth to keep it from crushing his neck, trembling with the effort. 

Tailgate's first instinct was to surge upward and try to help Whirl pull Raizr's teeth away, but he realized almost immediately that was futile and he ducked back down, scrabbling at the ground for the gun Whirl had dropped, trapped beneath him as he writhed and struggled, pedes churning against the ground as his vocalizer whined and shrieked. His hands found the revolver and he aimed shakily for the beast's head, but Whirl's was in the way and he aimed for center mass instead, hesitating only a moment before he pulled the trigger, and then pulled it again, and then a third time before the cat finally let go and collapsed, wheezing, beside him.

Whirl dragged Tailgate away as soon as he was free, coughing, trembling, but Tailgate kicked him in the shoulder hard enough to wiggle free and scrambled back over to the dying animal. 

"I'm sorry!" Tailgate blurted out, stupidly, collapsing to his knees beside him, hands on his side, but the old cat just chuckled weakly. 

"Don't be," Raizr sighed, all of his eyes swiveling to look up at Tailgate, "Good luck." The panther heaved a great, shuddering sigh, and just like that, went still. Overhead, there was a chime, and then the jingle indicating the match had ended. Whirl looked up at the scoreboard. 4/9 blinked back at him, innocently. 

"We gotta go back in," Whirl said, after a moment had passed and Tailgate had not moved, "Come on." He stood, tugging Tailgate up to rise as well, who let himself be led, stumbling, as if in a trance. When they stepped back into the cell, the door shut behind them, leaving the two of them alone. 

Tailgate didn't complain when Whirl picked him up, this time, crossed the room to the back wall and set down, pulling him into his lap, cockpit flat against his stomach and wrapped his arms around his back. 

Tailgate sniffled, shoving his face into Whirl's shoulder. "You're wrong," he said, voice quavering, "I know you're just doing what you do, I know you can't help it, but you're wrong."

Whirl was still, knees tucked against Tailgate's back, helm resting on top of his head. "I've seen him lose you before," he said, after a moment, "It would kill him. It would kill him for real."

"Whirl…"

"I'm not _trying_ to get killed, believe it or not," Whirl tightened his grip, "But I'm good for _this_. I can do _this_. I can survive _this._ But if it's me or you- if it's you, I'm useless. I can barely take care of myself, let alone him. You know how he gets. If it's me- if it's me, though, he has you. And you're… stronger than I am, for that."

Tailgate shook his head, inventing harshly, "It's not going to come down to that. They're going to come for us. It's not going to come to that."

"But it _might_ ," Whirl insisted, "And if it does you won't have time to think about it. You gotta decide in advance what you're willing to do. You gotta know."

"I'm not willing to do that."

"I'm older than you," Whirl continued, "I'm older than you if you take out the coma and I'm more fucked up than you. I've had my turn and I fucked it up."

"You deserve to be _happy_ , Birdy," Tailgate whispered, clutching at his neck like letting go might set him adrift.

"I have been happy, legs," Whirl said, softly, "I've been happy with you."

"I know," Tailgate's hands reached up to the sides of Whirl's helm, pulling it down until the top of it rested against his forehead, meeting his optic in earnest, "I've loved you."

"I've loved you, too," Whirl said, weakly, "I'll keep you safe as long as I can." 

"I know," said Tailgate, "I know." 


	5. Only the Lonely Survive

At some point Tailgate slipped into recharge, still clutched against Whirl's chest, but Whirl stayed awake, listening to his vent cycle in recharge, steady and paradoxically peaceful. Things were not going well. He had not seen the remaining two gladiators in the other cell, didn't know his odds. 

Whirl skimmed through damage reports that told him things he didn't want to know. Crumplezoned fuselage, damaged engine, wrecked stabilizers, internal bleeding. He was taking too much damage each round. He couldn't keep this going much longer, let alone forever. He had no idea if Rodimus and the rest had any kind of rescue plan in the works or not, if he only had to hold out a little longer for them to get there or if no rescue was coming, if he was prolonging the inevitable, making it worse each moment he pushed Tailgate through more and more trauma. 

Things had been good, for a while now. He had been happy. Ever since the duplication incident, things had been good. He got to shoot stuff _and_ make clocks. Nobody asked him to pick being one Whirl over the other; Whirl the watchmaker and Whirl the Wrecker could be the same Whirl. That was nice. He liked that. He liked lazy mornings sleeping in with two people who cared about him. He even liked being yelled at, sometimes, when he was being stupid and inconsolably difficult. It was nice having people care enough to get mad, to not just shrug and leave him to his bullshit, a lost cause beyond help, beyond concern. 

Whirl wasn't ready for it to be over yet. It had been a few years but not nearly enough. He had been a watchmaker for two hundred thousand years and _that_ had not been enough, that had left him yearning for millenia for a life he would never have again. But he liked the life he had, however small and strange it was. Two Whirls, the craftsman and the killer, two Conjunx, two years and it was not enough, never enough. He was greedy for it to go on forever, for every morning to be a haze of warm clutching limbs and gross dusty post-recharge breath too close to his intake, to spend every evening gushing about what he had done that day to an interested audience over a pint, to spend every rotation shift knowing someone was thinking about him and was looking forward to seeing him again.

It would have to be enough. He shifted for the first time in hours, tightening his grip on Tailgate when the minibot whined in his recharge, but did not wake. The deepening night and his reflections therein had not convinced him that he was being inconsolably self depreciative or suicidally driven. To the contrary, it had only hardened his resolve that he was _right._ Whirl had been a watchmaker for two hundred thousand years. Tailgate had been conscious for, like, ten, collectively. What Whirl had had would have to be enough, because that _definitely_ wasn't. The last time Cyclonus had thought Tailgate was dead, Whirl had known he was not enough to save him. His despair had been so powerful it overrode the desires of everyone else around him when they had reached Mederi. He had wanted to die and Whirl knew in his spark he would not have been enough, not then and not now, to fix that. Tailgate was the one that pulled people out of their miserable self pity, not him. It had been a long time since Whirl had actively considered suicide, but it was the first time he was actually realizing that he actively didn't want to die. It was just particularly unfortunate timing. 

Eventually, the churning noise in the ceiling began, and the platform lowered, waking Tailgate up, stiff and sore from the awkward recharge position. Whirl shifted to let him down on the floor, and Tailgate retrieved the two cubes of energon they were given and brought them back. 

"I can't fly, I only need the one," Whirl lied, taking one from Tailgate's hands. The minibot sat down next to him, leaning against his side. 

"Tell me something about you I don't know," said Tailgate, clutching his cube in his servos.

Whirl paused uncertainly, before answering, "I repainted green once, for like two years."

Tailgate snorted, "You would look terrible in green. Like, mossy?"

"Like neon."

"That's awful. Tell me something else."

"I didn't always just make clocks," Whirl said, "I made other stuff, too, sometimes. I just like clockwork- little gears and stuff. I, uh- I made some wind up toys, once."

"That sounds cute. Maybe, when we get back," Tailgate said, voice heavy, "Maybe you can make me one." 

Whirl was quiet, before he shifted closer. "Yeah. I'll make you as many as you want."

"So what's the plan, then?" Tailgate asked, turning his cube in his hands, staring at it as if it might reveal a solution to their woes.

"Well, at max, we've got today and maybe tomorrow. I dunno what's gonna happen after that. Even if we manage to take out the other two guys today, tomorrow they'll probably have us against each other, and- that's. Obviously that's a problem. After that, I don't even know what to expect."

"If they're coming, they gotta come tomorrow, then," Tailgate nodded, "After that it will be too late." 

"Maybe not."

"I told you, Whirl," Tailgate stopped fiddling with the cube, tightening his grip in his hands and hiking his shoulders up, "I'm not doing that." 

"You might have to."

"I don't _have_ to do anything," Tailgate shook his head, "I would rather go together than do that."

"And leave Cyclonus with _no one?_ This-" Whirl leaned forward, ducking his head, "...Listen. There might come a moment when a call has to get made, a hard call, and you gotta be ready for that moment to come, because if you aren't, you'll miss it. Me and Cyc- both of us are alive because we learned how to do that early. How to make the hard calls and live with the consequences, because everybody that didn't? They died. For stupid, pointless reasons, most of 'em. Don't die just cuz it's easier than living with your choices."

"Birdy…" 

"It's a tomorrow problem, hopefully," Whirl relented, "we still gotta survive today, though. The tower is about the same distance from our cell as it is from theirs. I figure there's a decent chance they're gonna go for the same place, but high ground is high ground. It's easier to defend with the bottleneck."

"You can't fly," Tailgate pointed out.

"Nah, but I can still run," Whirl nodded, "Though your alt-mode might be faster than me in root."

"Did you see what the other guys looked like?"

"No," Whirl admitted, "I have no idea what to prepare for."

"So we go for the tower," Tailgate said, "and if they get there first?" 

"We back off and take the rocks again, and don't lose eyes on 'em. If they're both organics and they don't look aquatic, go for the water. That should give them at least one hurdle to get through." 

"Okay," Tailgate exvented, "We have a plan, then."

Whirl reached over and took one of Tailgate's hands in his claw, holding it as tightly as he dared. "Just worry about today, then. We'll deal with tomorrow tomorrow." 

Tailgate nodded, squeezing his fingers around Whirl's pincer, and they waited. 

* * *

Eventually the ceiling began to chug and the door began to rise, and with it, so did the last two living things in the cell. 

"Don't get separated," Whirl said, as the door came to a halt, picking up Tailgate and dropping him on his shoulders, "Stay with me."

"Always," Tailgate responded, voice laced with static, and he tightened his grip with his legs around Whirl's neck and steadied his hands on his pistol.

The buzzer sounded. 

Whirl was never as fast in his root mode as he was in his alt, but that was a given. He was still fast for a mech his size, light and with very powerful legs, he was good at short burst movement. He resisted the urge to flinch when he heard the pistol go off near his head, Tailgate firing somewhere he couldn't see.

"Mechanoid," Tailgate said, still aiming, "Big."

"Got it," Whirl confirmed, jumping over an incline. Tailgate fired another shot. 

"They've split, they're circling us."

"Both mechanical?"

"Think so."

"Watch for the other one," Whirl said, and saw the other mechanoid approaching the tower. He'd been correct, they were aiming for the same place.

The other mech was _much_ bigger and _much_ bulkier than him, but even less standard shaped. It was an obscene mix of shapes, asymmetrical and chimerical in nature, like some horrifying bastard creation of a dozen non compatible mechanoid lifeforms patchworked together. Its gaping mouth and tiny eyes reminded Whirl of Sky Lynx. 

Whirl fired off an energon round at it- or tried to, but his cannons spat static and whined and he switched to manual artillery. The thing shook off bullets like they were insects, but, on the bright side, it was too large to fit inside the tower for sure, unless it was also some kind of freaky combiner. 

"Hold on," Whirl shouted in warning as the mech in front of him ripped a tree out of the ground and _threw_ it at him. Whirl skidded to a halt and doubled over backward as it passed over him, and when Tailgate's legs tightened to a death grip around his throat while he was upside down his vision whited out with pain, the gaping holes from yesterday's chomping still ragged and weeping. Whirl scampered back to his pedes and fired off another round of bullets as he skidded inside the open first floor of the tower, a granite ceiling held aloft by cylindrical support beams and little else. Whirl turned to see the other gladiator, flanking him.

Much smaller, a lithe, lizard-styled body type, bipedal, wheeled, and with far too many teeth for Whirl's taste. Upon a moment's consideration, Whirl wasn't sure it was entirely mechanoid at all, more likely organic with cybernetic enhancement. The lizard-creature raised an armblaster and fired a plasma beam at him that Whirl narrowly avoided, grabbing Tailgate off his shoulders and dropping him with a toss towards the stairs.

"High ground!" he yelled. Tailgate didn't argue and beelined for the stairs, even as the big mechanoid slammed its front feet against the structure, angrily, and Whirl sent a volley of coverfire at the other, moving backwards. The thing was fast, and far more agile than he was, darting in and out, easily avoiding the shots. Whirl cursed, and skipped backwards, following Tailgate up.

"Cover the stairwell," Whirl yelled as he ran past Tailgate to the side he had left the lizard-thing on. At first he thought he had lost it, but it emerged, having scurried up the side of one of the support beams, and fired another plasma beam, quickshot, without aiming, but it hit Whirl's in the gut and took out a chunk of his lower abdomen, beam continuing down through the floor, sheering off concrete. 

Whirl gasped as the pain hit his neuroreceptors, something worse than anything else so far, so close to his main fuel tank, but even near blinded by agony, Whirl had the muscle memory of a killer and snapped a claw out, grasping, and clamped his pincers down on the wrist of the thing, on its blaster. He heard it whining, reeling up for another blast, only to try to abort and fail, and the whole arm exploded. 

The shockwave threw him off his feet and onto his back, and Whirl thought he might have blacked out for a second, because when his vision cleared, Tailgate was dragging him backward. 

"Ism?" Whirl slurred, shaking his helm.

"You got it," Tailgate said, "It chimed."

"Okay," Whirl gasped, "One more."

"What are we gonna do about _that_?!" Tailgate cried, turning his head to look at the behemoth that was slamming it pedes on the structure. 

"It can't get in here, I think," Whirl said, "but concrete won't hold forever."

"Okay, so now what? How do we take that thing down? It's huge!" 

"We have to get to-" Whirl shoved his elbows beneath him and tried to force himself to his feet and stalled, optic dilating as he realized his legs weren't responding. 

"We have to what?" Tailgate repeated, "What's wrong?" 

Whirl stared down at his legs, ragdolled below his waist, and the hole in his gut that had severed a connection along his spinal strut. The entire tower shook again as the giant struck it again, dust raining down from a cracking ceiling. 

"I think this might be your moment, TG," Whirl said, unable to stop his voice from shaking, "I think it might be time to go on without me."

"What? No! Absolutely not!" Tailgate grabbed him under the arms and began dragging him toward the stairs, struggling for every step. Whirl's legs trailed limply out in front of him, in a stream of his own spattered energon. "Come on! We just need- to think of- a plan!" 

"I think there is a plan," said Whirl, "We talked about the plan."

"No! Shut _up_ , Whirl, you're still talking, talk it to death if you have to!" 

The thing hit the structure again and it shook more violently, so much so that Tailgate tripped and fell, dropping Whirl. Another cloud of debris rained down from the ceiling.

"You have to _go_ !" Whirl snapped, "You can't _carry_ me!"

"Yes I _can_!" Tailgate shrieked, grabbing him again. Whirl wriggled, fighting him. 

"You have to go! You have to go _right now_ before this thing falls apart!"

"No!"

Whirl snapped his head to the side as the beast reared up yet again, and then turned, grabbing Tailgate and yanking him into his lap, wrapping his torso as much around him as he could, just as the mechanoid's feet hit the tower again, and the whole thing snapped like a toothpick sculpture, platforms sloughing off, pillars breaking apart, and the floor cracked open beneath them.

* * *

If Whirl had been uncertain whether or not he had blacked out before, he was sure he had this time. He came back online fighting the feeling of molten lava in his helm, the numbness in his legs and the pain everywhere else, looking blearily around for Tailgate, and found him laying face down a little ways away.

They were beneath a propped up concrete platform, barely taller than Whirl laying down, and outside he could hear the thing stomping around still, no doubt searching for them in the rubble. That meant the round was still on. That meant Tailgate was-

Tailgate sputtered and coughed, pushing himself to his elbows as he searched wildly for Whirl. When he found him he dragged himself over, reaching outward, and Whirl grabbed his hands in his claws, pulling their helms together, trembling.

"Listen to me. _Listen_ to me, Teeg," Whirl said, hating the way his voice sounded, small and frightened, unlike him in every way, "This _is the moment_. I'm done for. Look at me- I'm bleeding out as we speak. It's too late."

"No, no," Tailgate sobbed, clutching at his helm, "I _can't,_ Whirl, I can't _do_ that!" 

"Yes, you can!" Whirl tightened his grip on Tailgate's hands, "You can do anything you have to to survive. You just have to _do_ it."

"That isn't worth it. That's too much."

"Then don't do it for _me_! Don't do it for _you_!" Whirl grabbed Tailgate by the face, and wished perhaps for the first time since his empurata that he could still cry, "Do it for _Cyclonus._ He _needs_ you. We need to end this round right now, or it's going to kill us _both_."

"What's the point! What am I supposed to do against that thing tomorrow!" 

"Think of something! But you give him one more day to _find_ you," Whirl pleaded, "He _will_ come for you, I _promise_ , I _know_ it. You have to fight to give him as much time as you can. It's too late for me. Please. Tailgate, _please._ " 

The ground shook with a nearby stomp, the concrete above trembling. Whirl fumbled around the ground for the gun Tailgate had dropped and shoved it into his hands. Tailgate held it like a venomous snake, deadly and terrifying.

"This is the last thing I can do to protect you," Whirl quavered, guiding Tailgate's finger to fall on the trigger and his hands to hold the barrel against his cracked yellow optic, "Keep your eyes open. You need to watch. It's going to hurt. It's going to leave you different. It's going to make you strong enough to survive tomorrow, and the next day if you have to, and the day after that, until he comes for you, and it's going to fucking hurt but it's going to be fucking _worth_ it." 

Tailgate's hands shook like dry leaves, plating rattling, visor spilling optical fluid down his mask and onto his kneeling legs. "Birdy, I-"

"I don't _want_ to die," Whirl said, holding his shaking claws firm on Tailgate's wrists, "I used to, I used to so bad, but I don't anymore. It took me a long time to realize it, but _living_ , even fucked up, traumatized or whatever, is better than _dead_. So you _have_ to _live._ You have to go back for Cyclonus. Or he'll _follow us_." Whirl choked on the last words, vocalizer breaking, claws slipping from their grasp. The ground shook again, the behemoth growing closer.

"I love you," Tailgate sobbed, raising the barrel of the pistol again, pressing it firmly against Whirl's optic. Whirl shut his eye, and Tailgate kept his open.

There was a sound like glass shattering in reverse, and out of nowhere, a familiar Great Sword sailed as if sent via divine intervention and lodged itself squarely in Tailgate's trigger arm, and he buckled with a cry, firing a wild shot upward. Whirl onlined his optic, blearily snapping his helm in the direction of the sound.

"Cyclonus!" 


	6. Lover Dearest

Cyclonus had knocked over his chair in his rush for the door, transforming as soon as he hit the street, pinging desperately for a location signal that kept returning null. He was fortunate where Whirl and Tailgate had not been that when a photon blast had clipped his wing and tried to down him, he had been both significantly more sober and significantly more keyed up, prepared for something bad to happen.

He banked hard and hit his attacker feet first. 

It took the combined force of Rodimus and Megatron both to drag him away, and even then, that was only possible because a high voltage blast had partially knocked him offline. It occurred to him, as he was carried back and away, that the idea of two separate incidents being unrelated was unlikely at best. 

Tailgate not responding worried Cyclonus significantly, but _Whirl_ not responding so much more so. Whirl was _notoriously_ difficult to knock offline, a combat frame with a high tolerance for pain. He hadn't even gotten a _message_ from Whirl, and anything with the ability to knock two mechanoids offline that quickly was not something to be trifled with. 

Cyclonus did not trifle.

This was the thought he woke with when he reemerges from a hard reboot, being carted back to the ship slung over Megatron's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. 

"Where are they!" he snapped to attention, clawing at his 'rescuer's' grip.

"A problem I promise we will return to, but right now," Megatron grunted, "We _really_ have to get back to the ship."

"We are not _leaving_ them!" Cyclonus snarled, but the warlord's grip on him was firm. Cyclonus was unaccustomed to being matched in strength, and found himself loathing it.

"We will come _back_ for them," Megatron answered, "But right now it seems like _we_ are the ones in danger."

"Let me go!" Cyclonus demanded, digging his claws in and pushing, kicking even as thick plating began to give way under his grip.

"I cannot."

Cyclonus _bit_ him on the collar and tore at plating, fighting to wrench himself free, but he was still fighting when Megatron scrambled up the Lost Light's closing ramp and into the loading bay. He didn't stop fighting until they were fleeing towards orbit and realized a chunk of the crew was missing.

* * *

Rodimus was, for his part, visibly distraught by the turn of events, no matter how hard he fought to hide it, stay cool and in control. They clearly hadn't properly vetted the safety of this planet. Whirl and Tailgate had not been the only Lost Lighters arrested during their little trip, not to mention anyone left behind when they'd bolted. They were lucky to break atmo before the serious planetary defenses had kicked in, leaving them hovering just out of planetary space and desperately trying to come up with a plan to rescue their scattered shipmates. 

Cyclonus paced back and forth on the command deck, while Rodimus watched him, head moving left to right and back again as he tracked his movement with his optics.

"Gotta say, dude, the frenetic movement is kind of new for you, and it's freaking me out. Shouldn't you be glaring ominously out the window and thinking of all the ways you're going to disembol anyone that touched your boyfriends?" 

" _Conjunxes_ ," Cyclonus snapped, but did not stop pacing, "I don't even know where they _are_. I urge you to keep your jokes to _yourself_ , lest I project my disemboweling fantasies elsewhere."

Rodimus leaned back in his chair and covered his face, groaning. "Fuck, I'm sorry. I know, I know, I'm- I'm trying to keep it together, man, I don't know why I say shit like that. The- your pacing is making me more anxious than I already am." 

Cyclonus stopped pacing, clenching and unclenching one fist at his side, looking back at Rodimus, who had folded back over in his seat, head in his hands. "Is Blaster finished?" 

"You would know if he was."

“He is,” said Megatron, the doors swishing open to usher him in as Rodimus and Cyclonus looked up, “Whirl, Tailgate, Rewind, Brainstorm, and Slamdance were all picked up by planetary security, and Riptide and Nautica are currently MIA, presumably still on the planet somewhere, hopefully hiding.”

“Where is Chromedome?” Cyclonus asked.

“He’s working with Perceptor to try and build a teleporter.”

“What does _Chromedome_ know about _teleporters_?” Rodimus groaned, dragging his hands down his face.

“Nothing, presumably,” Megatron grimaced, “He’s mostly translating Brainstorm’s notes. Perceptor said his ‘cartoonishly ADHD scribbles’ were ‘beyond indecipherable.’”

“Lovely,” Rodimus muttered, “Alright, well, if they’re in planetary security, they’re probably safer than Riptide and Nautica, at least. Or _us_. Are those cruisers still tailing us?

“No, they’ve returned to the surface. Unfortunately, I think your relief may be somewhat misguided.”

“...Why do you say that?” Rodimus asked, raising his head slowly. Megatron’s optics darted to Cyclonus, lingered for a moment, and then returned to his co-captain.

“This planet’s justice system relies on gladiatorial combat.”

“ _What?_ ” Cyclonus and Rodimus yelled.

Megatron handed Rodimus his datapad, and Cyclonus rushe behind him, to look at the screen. A broadcast was playing, an alien language giving commentary over a recording from what appeared to be a cell full of tired looking aliens, including Whirl and Tailgate. Tailgate was sitting up, seemingly talking to an oversized organic cat, but Whirl was laying on his back, dark and motionless.

“Blaster says this is a live feed,” Megatron explained, reaching over and scrolling sideways on the screen. It changed to a recording of another cell of aliens, this time showing Brainstorm measuring an alien’s arm length and chattering beneath the foreign language commentary, “They release twenty prisoners a day into an arena, let them kill off ten of their numbers, and then dump ten more in and do it again the next day.”

“Why didn’t anyone _tell me this_ before we _landed_?!” Rodimus yelled, and Cyclonus plucked the datapad from his hands, tabbing back to Whirl and Tailgate.

“Blaster says he thought the broadcasts were fictional.”

“Fucking _fantastic_ ,” Rodimus snarled, sitting back with a huff. “Alright. That moves up our timeline. Seven crewmates missing, all with limited time, and us without our resident science psycho to deus ex machina up a solution to the problem. Great. Just great.”

“Which is why I believe we should prioritize our efforts on Brainstorm first," Megatron nodded, "Once we have rescued him, he will expedite any attempts to save the others." 

"Whirl isn't moving," Cyclonus said, to no one in particular. 

"I worry about Rewind especially. He's very small and has no internal weaponry to speak of," Megatron continued, "Slamdance has internal firearms, and Tailgate might not be especially proficient in combat, _Whirl_ is _Whirl_ , so-"

"Whirl isn't _moving_ ," Cyclonus insisted, shoving the datapad back in front of Rodimus, "Do we even know if he's alive?!" 

"Look," said Rodimus, pointing at Tailgate, "Do you think he would look so calm if Whirl was dead? He's just out cold."

Cyclonus pulled the datapad away again, staring at it, as if he might will the image to change, "I pray you're right." 

Rodimus carded his hands over his lips and tapped his fingers against his face, anxiously lost in thought, optics tracking as he came up with a response, "No, Cyclonus is right. We need to triage. Who needs help most urgently. Brainstorm first. Whirl's injured, and rescuing him is a two for one deal, so they're next."

Cyclonus nodded along, hopelessly.

* * *

Cyclonus clung to the datapad with claws that left cracks in the screen when the first round began. At first he had thought something was wrong with the broadcast, that the colours warping over the frequency, but there was another Cybertronian prisoner who looked so similar to Whirl that it hurt to look at him. Cyclonus wasn't even sure Whirl had noticed him, he was so distracted fighting a rock lord on the other side of the arena. 

Cyclonus had been right, that Whirl could take care of himself, and thought ruefully his Conjunx made for spectacular television, the way he switched seamlessly from crashing to ripping his opponent's arm off, moving through fighting like some kind of dance, but not gracefully, not lightly like Cyclonus might, but brutally, with conviction and ferocity that became him. He had certainly earned his reputation. It wasn't until he _froze_ that Cyclonus started to worry.

The announcer spoke in a language Cyclonus could not parse and it drowned out whatever Whirl and Tailgate were actually yelling at each other, but they were clearly fighting over something. Cyclonus yearned to crawl through the datapad and grab the both of them before things got any worse, and he nearly snapped the thing in half when a Quintesson knock-off pulled Whirl into a chokehold and he started thrashing. 

By the time it was over he was shaking, and when Rodimus put a hand on his shoulder he very nearly ripped it off. 

"Perceptor says it's ready," Rodimus told him, "It's time to get Brainstorm. I need you." 

"Right," Cyclonus exvented, steam in his set jaw, watching as his partner's retreated back to their cell, Whirl limping. With great reluctance, he set the datapad on the computer terminal and rose from his seat. "Let's retrieve our science officer."

* * *

Rescuing Brainstorm had been more difficult than Cyclonus would have liked. Perceptor and Chromedome's teleporter had dumped them outside the arena proper and they had had to fight their way in, but at the least, they'd released the rest of this nightmare planet's prisoners, to whatever ends that might be a good thing. 

Cyclonus returned to the bridge to watch the live feed while Brainstorm went over improving their teleporter and First Aid desperately tried to get him to sit still enough to reattach his left arm.

Out of combat the announcer had left, and Cyclonus could finally hear them talking, at least, if they were talking. Tailgate had gone into recharge and Whirl was clearly pretending to have, but Cyclonus knew he couldn't recharge in his alt mode. Something about migraines. He didn't talk about it often, but Cyclonus remembered. He flicked the screen back over to check on Rewind, who wasn't recharging either, sitting against one wall and holding a blaster he had pulled off a corpse on his knee, pointed at an organic beast that slept on the other side of the cell. Cyclonus hadn't watched his match. He wasn't sure what that was about.

He checked his comm again, though he knew the electric field around the arena blocked frequencies. His message came back null again. 

He changed frequencies and messaged Brainstorm again. "How much longer?"

"Almost ready," Brainstorm responded, "but-"

"I know," Cyclonus growled, "I saw Slamdance's replay."

"Whirl can take care of himself, Cyc," Brainstorm said, and Cyclonus grimaced at the nickname, "Primus himself couldn't kill the bastard, and he's not gonna let anybody _touch_ Tailgate."

"I'm not worried about him _getting killed_ ," Cyclonus snapped, "I'm worried about-"

An explosion cut him off, and after a stream of curses, Brainstorm cut the line and left Cyclonus brooding, alone on the command deck with Megatron.

"So," said Megatron, after the silence grew thick and heavy, "Slamdance is a combiner."

"So Slamdance is a combiner," Cyclonus repeated, like the words tasted sour, "putting them each in different cells is particularly cruel."

"We antagonized them by freeing Brainstorm," Megatron nodded, "They're taunting us." 

"I know," said Cyclonus.

"What about Whirl concerns you?" Megatron inquired, and Cyclonus flicked his optics to him, bitterly, then back to the screen, where Tailgate had finally awoken, rations descending from the ceiling. 

"This is a bad position for him to be in," he said, eventually. 

"His kill list is nearly as long as Drift's," Megatron said, "There's not a single creature in that arena that poses him a genuine threat."

"There wouldn't be, if Tailgate wasn't there."

"What makes you say that?"

"Whirl has a martyr complex," Cyclonus answered, watching as the object of discussion transformed, looking exhausted. 

Megatron was silent, before he leaned forward, squinting his optics. "Whirl," he said, slowly, " _Whirl_ has a martyr complex." 

"Whirl has a martyr complex," Cyclonus repeated, without elaborating. 

"Right," said Megatron, leaning back when he realized Cyclonus was serious.

"Something is happening," Cyclonus said, sitting up. The announcer had begun speaking again, and Megatron pulled the broadcast up on the main screen. They watched as all the prisoners looked up, startled, at the door as it opened, and a spotlight flicked on over Whirl alone. 

Cyclonus knocked his chair over as he stood, and when Whirl stepped outside the screen showed him facing down the unfamiliar Cybe that Cyclonus had noticed yesterday. 

"Do you recognize him?" Megatron asked. 

"No," said Cyclonus, "I recognize that _look_ though. Whirl can't handle this."

"A half starved Cybertronian with a four million year out of date frame?" Megatron asked, as Cyclonus turned, "Whirl can't handle _him_?"

"I keep telling you," Cyclonus said, keying open the door, "I'm not worried about him _getting killed."_

By the time Cyclonus had run to Brainstorm's lab, Whirl and the stranger had stopped dogfighting in their alt modes and resorted to just trying to beat each other to death with their fists. Cyclonus tore the door open.

"Brainstorm!" he snarled, "We are pulling Whirl and Tailgate _now_!" 

"No can do, Cyc," said Rodimus, strapping on his goggle while Brainstorm whirred his machine back to life, "We have to pull Slamdance _now._ "

"What could possibly-" Cyclonus glanced up at the broadcast that was playing here in Brainstorm's lab and trailed off. On screen, Slamdance's two apparent combiner halves were alone in their arena, watching each other. 

"Close your optics if you don't wanna go blind," Brainstorm warned, before he slammed a fist down on the activation switch. Cyclonus barely managed to cover his faceplate in time, and when he dared raise his optics again, watched on the viewscreen as Rodimus tumbled out onto the field, grabbing Slamdance's top half under one arm and dodging a shot from one of the camera drones before he grabbed the other, and Brainstorm slammed the button again. 

Rodimus skittered back into the room from a flash of light that left Cyclonus blinking but not blind, holding two minibots under each arm, who looked more relieved than words could describe. 

"Grandslam!" cried the one Cyclonus recognized as Slamdance's bottom half.

"Raindance!" yelled the other, and Rodimus dropped the two wriggling minibots, who immediately grabbed each other and recombined. 

"Since when were you a combiner?" Rodimus groused, rubbing his arm where the blast he had dodged had grazed him, "Could you always do that?"

"Could does not mean _would_ ," said Slamdance, hugging his knees to his chest like he was dearly relieved to be combined again, "I haven't been split up in _millenia._ "

"Okay, well, like, that's fine, but could you, like, mark stuff like that on your medical files, please, so we know how to triage you effectively next time you get kidnapped?" Rodimus grimaced, "Brainstorm, how long until the teleporter is ready again?" 

"It needs a few hours to charge," said Brainstorm, tapping away at his terminal, "Whirl is on his own for now."

"No!" Cyclonus snarled, "There must be a way to charge it faster!" 

Brainstorm flicked the screen away from the empty arena they had taken Slamdance from to Whirl's, where he was beating the other Cybertronian's chest in with his fists, _dripping_ energon as if he had been _bathing_ in it.

"He looks fine to me," said Rodimus. Cyclonus stared, spark aching like it had been stabbed.

"No, he _doesn't_ ," Cyclonus wheezed, " _Look_ at him!"

"He's taken some hits, sure, but he's-"

"No, Rodimus, _look_ at him!" Cyclonus yelled, pointing at the screen. Whirl grabbed his enemy's spark chamber in his claws and _pulled_ , screaming all the while. "That is _not_ fine! He's _losing_ it!" 

"Losing _what_?" Brainstorm snorted, "Whirl never had it to begin with." 

Rodimus grabbed Cyclonus by the arm when he made to grab for the other jet, and he vented hot steamy through his vents, furiously. "If you can extend the _teeniest_ bit of sympathy to my Conjunx I _implore you do so_. He is not _crazy_ or without feeling. He's just as worth rescuing as _Rewind_ or _Slamdance._ "

"Cyc, he didn't mean Whirl's not worth rescuing," Rodimus soothed, hand still on Cyclonus's arm, "Brainstorm is one of the only people that _likes_ him. He's not trying to set you off. He just means-" Rodimus looked at Brainstorm, who seemed unconcerned with their conversation and had returned to his work, "He just means Whirl's hardly going to get _more_ fucked up than he already is. He's fine. Worry about Tailgate."

Cyclonus snarled at him and yanked his arm away, looking back up at his Conjunx, who was kneeling on the other Cybe's chest, panting, dripping fluid from his front, optic dilated all the way open, staring blankly, unseeingly ahead. 

"You don't know him _at all_ ," Cyclonus wheezed, his chest tightening, "Whirl is _so_ much more vulnerable than Tailgate right now." 

"I don't think I've ever heard anyone say 'Whirl' and 'vulnerable' in the same breath before." 

"Well get used to it!" Cyclonus snapped, stomping away to sink into a chair against the far wall, "He is not the invulnerable-"

"Unvincible, you mean."

"-Mech you all seem to have convinced yourselves he is. Whirl is _delicate._ Whirl is _fragile._ Whirl is-"

"Whirl," Rodimus interrupted, " _Whirl_ is delicate."

"Whirl is _suicidal_ ," Cyclonus finished, folding his claws in front of his mouth, watching Whirl stand and stumble back to his cell, as if sleepwalking. 

"Whirl's not suicidal," Rodimus commented, looking unconvinced. 

"You barely know him. You don't even like him."

"I like him! He's part of the Rod Squad for sure," Rodimus argued, looking offended, "but he's not suicidal. If he was actually suicidal, he'd be dead by now. Whirl doesn't _actually_ want to die. He just wants someone to stop him from killing himself," Rodimus said, leaving Cyclonus silent. 

"I apologize for snapping at you," he said, after a moment, "I've underestimated you again." 

"I pay attention, believe it or not," Rodimus huffed, "Give me _some_ credit." 

"Look at him," Cyclonus whispered, as the camera shifted from one of the roaming drones in the arena to one affixed within the cell, and Whirl collapsed in a corner facing the wall, "He's not coping." 

"He's not coping," Brainstorm interjected, not looking away from what he was doing, "He's _surviving._ " 

Cyclonus tightened his hands as they clasped each other, spark radiating pain in his chest like it hadn't since he had thought Tailgate was dead as Whirl flared his plating and pushed their Conjunx away, like a terrified wild animal. 

"Check in on Rewind," Rodimus said, and Brainstorm tabbed the screen over. Rewind was in the same spot Cyclonus had last seen him, paranoid, holding the blaster aloft on his knee, watching an organic beast with a mistrustful gaze. 

"How long until the teleporter is ready?" Cyclonus asked, voice breaking pathetically. 

"A few hours," Brainstorm repeated, but refrained from saying anything else.

* * *

Cyclonus stayed in Brainstorm's lab, waiting. When the doors rose again and Whirl stood, Brainstorm snapping his goggles off. "It's time," he said, "It's charged enough for one go."

Cyclonus looked at the screen, at Whirl holding Tailgate like a sack of potatoes, and then, on the other video feed, Rewind gripping the blaster in his arms as the organic beast rose to its feet, eyes on him like a meal. Cyclonus's tank flipped. He looked back at Whirl, who was sliding behind cover, aiming a gun at the center of the arena, Tailgate behind him.

"We have to save Rewind first," said Chromedome, voice shaking, "He's not going to survive another round of this."

Cyclonus's hands shook, before he set his dentae. "You're right."

"Of course you'd say that, you- wait, did you just agree with me?" Chromedome swivelled his head back towards Cyclonus, baffled. 

"Stay here. I will retrieve him," said Cyclonus, rising, spark heavy. He took one last lingering glance at the screen as Tailgate grabbed Whirl's helm, yelling something he couldn't hear.

Brainstorm flicked his goggles back on as Cyclonus stood in the circled area on the floor. "Ready," said Brainstorm, "Three, two-" 

Cyclonus closed his eyes as the teleporter took him over, whiting out and coming back into the world somewhere else, in the middle of the arena. It took him longer than he wanted to regain his bearings and find Rewind, backed into the corner by the creature he'd caught the ire of, shaking, and Cyclonus made a break for him, only managing to throw himself in the way in the time for the creature to crunch it's jass down on his forearm, claws churning the air as it fought to get to the minibot.

"Holy Pri- Cyclonus!" Rewind cried, dropping the arm he was carrying, "Where's Domey!"

"Safe," Cyclonus grunted, kicking the animal in the chest. It released his arm with a grunt of pain and he ducked, grabbing Rewind, and in a flash, he was back in Brainstorm's lab.

"Rewind!" Chromedome burst, voice cracking, and Rewind pushed out of Cyclonus's grasp, running to his Conjunx. Cyclonus stood, looking back at the screen, only to cry out when he realized one of the organics had Whirl's throat in its mouth and was pulling, crushing, that Whirl was scrabbling uselessly against it, unable to free himself, and he ran to the terminal as if being closer to the screen might put him closer to his loved ones. 

Whirl was going to die. Whirl was going to die because he picked Rewind over his own Conjunx. He'd made the wrong call. He'd killed him, he'd killed them both.

"You have to turn it on again!" Cyclonus pleaded, turning back to Brainstorm, "You have to have some kind of last ditch way to do that! You always do!"

"It has to charge!" Brainstorm cried, grabbing his head, "I _don't_ have a backup plan! This _was_ the backup plan!"

"Whirl…" Cyclonus croaked, optics locked on the screen, before Tailgate managed to retrieve Whirl's dropped pistol and put the thing down. Cyclonus hung his head, shoulders shaking. 

"They just won the round," Brainstorm concluded, sounding relieved, "He's alright."

"He's not alright," Cyclonus spat, " _Look_ at him. He's practically an endoskeleton."

"It's not the first time he's been so bad off," Rewind said, "Whirl's hard to kill, Cyclonus." 

"I keep trying to _tell_ all of you-"

"He isn't worried about him getting killed," Chromedome interrupted, "He's worried he'll kill himself to save Tailgate." 

The room was quiet. Cyclonus balled his claws into fists.

"Charge the machine. They're next. We have to get them before next round."

"We will," said Brainstorm, "We have to find Nautica and Riptide, too."

"I know," Cyclonus sighed, "I _know_." 

* * *

Cyclonus had retreated to the back of Brainstorm's lab again, wrapped around the datapad like a lifeline as his Conjunx's quiet voices wafted from the live feed, each word another dagger through his spark. 

"If it's me or you- if it's you, I'm useless. I can barely take care of myself, let alone him. You know how he gets. If it's me- if it's me, though, he has you. And you're… stronger than I am, for that," Whirl rasped, clinging to Tailgate in his lap like it might be for the last time. 

Cyclonus itched to tear his faceplate open, but resisted only by promising himself he would be allowed to shred it as much as he wanted if he actually lost one of them. Each moment that passed convinced him more and more he was going to.

"It's not going to come down to that. They're going to come for us. It's not going to come to that," Tailgate argued, and Cyclonus gripped the datapad tighter, cursing himself for his sympathy, wishing desperately he had chosen differently. He should have come for them by now. 

"But it might, and if it does you won't have time to think about it. You gotta decide in advance what you're willing to do. You gotta know."

"I'm not willing to do that."

"I'm older than you. I'm older than you if you take out the coma and I'm more fucked up than you. I've had my turn and I fucked it up."

"You deserve to be _happy_ , Birdy."

Cyclonus clamped his teeth down on his forearm until it bled, and he knew that was counterproductive in trying to resist the urge to self harm but _Primus_. This was _far too much._

"I have been happy, legs," Whirl said, brokenly, "I've been happy with you." _But not happy enough_ , Cyclonus thought, bitterly. 

"I know," Tailgate whispered, "I've loved you."

"I've loved you, too," Whirl whispered back, and Cyclonus bit down so hard the plating crumpled beneath his fangs. 

* * *

"I've found them!" Blaster yelled, and Cyclonus jumped when the doors opened, "Nautica and Riptide just got picked up by planetary security. They're in transport now."

"No," snapped Cyclonus, "We are pulling Whirl and Tailgate next."

"They might be taking them somewhere _worse_ than their arenas," Brainstorm said, "I'm a genius, but I'm not a mind reader."

"If we don't pull them before this round, they're dead," Cyclonus snarled, "We _cannot_ put it off any longer." 

"It's almost there," Brainstorm commented, looking back at the teleporter, "But I don't think I can lock onto their location until the round actually starts and the cell opens- unlike Rewind's cell, Whirl and Tailgate's is underground, probably because he can fly. I need the electricity grid to be live as a reference point. Without it I could be teleporting you right into a wall, and then you're all dead." 

Cyclonus sank back into his seat. 

"If you pull Nautica and Riptide," Cyclonus wheezed, "Will it be ready by the next match?" 

Brainstorm looked back at it, then up again. "I think so."

"I need better than that."

"I can't give you better than that," Brainstorm grumbled, "I'm already giving you kind of a lot."

Cyclonus hung his face in his hands and tightened his claws until they dug into his faceplate, fingers trembling with the force of his resistance, before he felt an arm around his shoulder and realized someone had sat down beside him and pulled him into a hug. 

"Have faith," Chromedome said, "We'll get there in time."

Cyclonus shivered, being comforted by a mech he knew despised him, and accepted the offer of kindness. "We'll get there in time," he repeated, as if doing so would speak it into truth. 

"Megatron," said Brainstorm, "bring Rodimus, we're picking up Nautica and Riptide. I need you down here, I have an idea."

* * *

Whirl and Tailgate were holding hands and standing in front of the opening gate. Cyclonus was screaming. 

"How can it not be _ready_!" he demanded, "You said-"

"I said I _thought_ it would!" Brainstorm yelled back, "You don't think I'm doing my best?!"

"Your best has not been good enough!" Cyclonus shrieked.

"I've saved _everyone else_ so far!" Brainstorm yelled back, "That's a _really good_ death count for one of our 'incidents!'"

"Ahh-!" Cyclonus snarled, grabbing brainstorm by the collar, baring his fangs, optics beginning to leak. On screen, the door opened, and Whirl started running.

"Brainstorm," said Megatron, voice heavy, "Do it." 

"You sure?" asked Brainstorm, held aloft. 

"Do _what?_ " Cyclonus snapped. 

"I'm sure," said Megatron.

"Put me down," said Brainstorm, slapping at Cyclonus's hands, and Cyclonus surprised himself by doing as he was told. "Get over here," Brainstorm continued, grabbing a cable from his worktable.

"What?" Cyclonus demanded, "What are you doing?"

"I'm charging the teleporter," said Megatron, sitting down and crossing his legs. His chest spiralled open, revealing his spark chamber, casting the room in an eerie green glow. Brainstorm unceremoniously jammed the end of his power adapter to Megatron's spark chamber, and Cyclonus had to duck when the light became too bright to look into. On screen, Whirl was fighting with some kind of lizard-cyborg on wheels. 

Megatron was rigid, dentae grit, optics blown out bright, before Brainstorm ripped the adapter away with a curse and the warlord collapsed in a heap, gasping. Cyclonus dropped to his knees and pulled him up to his elbows.

"Focus on the center of the pain," Cyclonus said, alarmed, "open your vents before you overheat."

Megatron listened to him, clutching at his chest. Above him Brainstorm was typing. Cyclonus looked back up at the screen just in time to see Whirl take a shot to the gut and go down, just before the lizard exploded. 

"No!" Cyclonus screamed, scrambling to stand. On screen Whirl had gone still and dark, and Tailgate had grabbed him beneath the shoulders, desperately trying to drag him back towards the stairs.

"Almost-" said Brainstorm.

"Hurry up!" Cyclonus demanded, desperate, just as Whirl's optic flickered back on. He didn't stand. The structure shook, stricken.

"He can't get up," Cyclonus breathed, "Tailgate can't carry him."

"I just need a klik-" Brainstorm yelled.

"I don't know if he _has_ a klik!" Cyclonus wailed, pulling himself back to his feet, just as the building on screen collapsed. Everyone went silent.

"The match is still on," said Chromedome, after a moment, "It's not over yet."

"Get me in there," Cyclonus breathed, "Right now."

"I don't know if I've got the coordinates right, with that thing collapsed, I can't be sure I won't teleport you right into a wall," Brainstorm said, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant, "I need to recalculate."

"There's no _time,_ " Cyclonus begged, turning toward him, "It's now or never."

Brainstorm hit the button, and Cyclonus drew his Great Sword from his back, holding the handle to his face, and closed his eyes, focusing until the world went silent beyond the rushing of energon past his audials. The sword carried his spark through it, an extension of himself, in it's purest form. 

He drew back his arm, and _threw_ it as hard as he could through the teleporter, following after. 


	7. Who do you love

Around a decade ago Whirl had tried to kill himself. He had known for a long time that if the war ever actually ended, he would have to. He wasn't like other people. He might have been, once, but now? It was too late. It had been too late for a long, long time. 

He had waited a bit, to be certain they were serious, and as people started _moving into habblocks_ and _opening businesses_ and _beginning fresh lives_ he accepted the truth. The war was over. If it was going to be fought anymore, it would be with politics and bullshit. No one needed a living weapon like him anymore. He was going to be expected to be something else, now, something real. Like, a person. 

Whirl could never be a person. Not a real one. Never again. He was hollow like the barrel of a gun, devoid of depth and substance. There would be no post war for him, no happily ever after, no peaceful ending. He knew what he was and he knew what would happen. He would bottle up all the hurting he'd learned to do as easily as flying and one day he would snap, and he'd hurt _real_ people. The world was moving on, and there was never going to be a place in the new world for a Whirlibird without a war to fight. 

It was easier on everyone, especially himself, to end it now, before he went through the motions and proved how pointless it all was to try and be something he wasn't. He had done few kind things in his life, but killing himself now would be the kindest thing he would ever do. 

He had collected all the supplies methodically, peacefully, beating in the corpse faces of sparkless Sweeps as he did, before he struck a match and said some final words, a parting gesture to a universe who had never really listened to all of his pleading for mercy before and likely wasn't listening to his goodbye now. 

And then some dude with horns and and a face like a skeleton had stumbled in and spooked the hell out of him. They never spoke about it again. 

* * *

The next time he had made up his mind to kill himself, he had decided it would be for a good reason. His life had never been worth too much, but if he threw it at a good enough cause, his death might be worth something, at least. Getting Megatron put down would certainly be good enough to maybe be remembered with a little sympathy, at least. 

Megatron hadn't taken the bait, and Atomizer had never stopped picking at the scab, reminding him what a shit job he's done of getting himself killed. Otherwise, they never spoke about it again.

* * *

The third time he'd tried to kill himself, it was for himself. He'd been quite proud at the time- were he a younger, angrier Whirl, in a choice between an innocent life and everyone else including himself, he would have thrown the kid out the airlock every time and doomed his spark forever. But he was older, more tired, the carapace shell around his spark cracked in the right places, and he had decided this time, he would go instead. He didn't have to be the bad guy just so no one else would have to. He could just quietly decline, and do something good for once.

He hadn't said goodbye to anyone. He hadn't left a note. He'd long since added "no funeral" to his medical file, so there was no point in doing anything else. He had nothing worth leaving behind and no one who would care he hadn't said goodbye to them. Whirl had accepted long since past that he would not be missed when he finally went, and at least there was some comfort in that, that after a lifetime of causing pain, he wouldn't have to cause any more. 

It was a fluke that saved his life, the 'good luck' that he simply hadn't yet expired when someone thought to check on him. They never spoke about it again. 

* * *

Whirl had learned, again and again, that his life was worth very little to very few, and that his death was worth even less. He had accepted that no one was ever going to pull him back from the ledge. He would have to step down himself, because he was too cowardly to finish the job, and that was simply the way things were. 

And then things had gotten weird. 

Movie nights that Tailgate kept inviting him to, even before he knew his _name_. Cyclonus's begrudging, ever annoyed company, complaining with his face about having to sit near Whirl but refusing to leave for some reason. Tailgate's near death, Cyclonus's big wake up call, everything with Getaway and the DJD, the new universe- all the soft edges and gentle flirting and Cyclonus's firm _insistence_ on being _open_ and _honest_ about _feeeelings_ all the time, Tailgate's enthusiasm to embrace the world and everything in it that he cared about and Whirl's own greedy spark that yearned to love and be loved in kind. It had been so _easy_ to fall in love. Too easy, even, too easy to fall into a rhythm, to wake up every morning and hear the words. 

He'd gotten soft. 

A younger Whirl would have despised that. He would have hated himself. Whirl was many things, but never soft. Never mushy. Never sentimental. Never _vulnerable._ He was not a real person, but a vessel of fury and hatred that knew only violence, internal and external, a thing incapable of loving or being loved, a thing that was not _soft_ or _tender_ , who needed no one and was needed by no one.

Whirl was not certain when that Whirl had died, but he seemed like a stranger now, and the Whirl that was left reached out to Cyclonus with both claws, yearning, desperate, _needy_. 

"I'm here," Cyclonus said, winglets clipped into the rubble above him, hands outstretched. 

"Primus, I've never been so happy to be stabbed," Tailgate sobbed, scrambling to grab Whirl and help drag him the rest of the distance to Cyclonus, and as soon as he was in grabbing distance Cyclonus crushed him to his chest, Tailgate clinging to his back, before they whited out, pulled back by the teleporter and dumped out onto the floor of Brainstorm's lab.

"You got them!" Brainstorm cried, yanking his goggles off, elated. 

"Cyclonus, Whirl needs to go to the medibay, like, _now_ ," Tailgate gasped, rolling away to sit up, disoriented.

"Tell First Aid I'm on the way," Cyclonus ordered, pushing himself to his feet and rushing for the door, cradling Whirl's battered frame in his arms like a tired sparkling, arms wrapped around his neck. 

"You know, hornhead, I was starting to think you weren't gonna come," Whirl said, resting his helm against Cyclonus's chest and listening to the thrum of his spark, rapid and pounding.

"I will _always_ come for you," Cyclonus answered, holding him as tight as he dared. Whirl had taken a lot of damage over the last few days, and he was already far too low on energon to keep his spark stabilized- all of his pointiest parts had been bashed in, his legs were dangling uselessly, he had a hole in his midsection and a partially shredded neck, and he had never looked smaller or more breakable, not even on Luna 01, not even when they had used the Matrixes to stop Unicron. Cyclonus was a difficult mech to frighten, but it frightened him.

"I know," Whirl mumbled, "thanks for that."

"Stay with me, Whirl," Cyclonus pleaded, skidding to a halt in front of the opening medibay doors, "I still need you."

"Alright," Whirl sighed, "But only cuz you asked so nicely."

Whirl allowed himself to be taken by First Aid and laid out on a medical berth, optic flickering with the effort to stay lit as he and Velocity worked to stem the bleeding and get him stabilized. It was less than a minute later that the door opened again and Tailgate came running in on his short legs, and Cyclonus dropped to his knees to grab him and pull him into a hug. 

"You don't have to leave, but you do have to go over there," First Aid yelled, pointing towards the empty half of the medibay, without looking up. Cyclonus nodded, picked Tailgate up without letting him go from their hug, crossed the room, and sat down on an unused berth, holding Tailgate in his lap. Tailgate clutched at his plating and sobbed, clinging desperately as if he were afraid he'd be pulled away at any moment. 

"I thought I would never see you again," Tailgate wept, mashing his faceplate into Cyclonus's chest, "I thought something must have _happened_ to you, that you hadn't come because you- you were-"

"I'm alright," Cyclonus reassured, burying his face in Tailgate's shoulder, "It took me longer to reach you than I wanted. I am so, so sorry."

"Whirl," Tailgate hiccupped, " _Whirl_ -"

"Whirl is going to be alright," Cyclonus said, and hoped it was true, "Whirl is a hard mech to kill."

Tailgate flinched and clung tighter, face buried, still sobbing, "I was _going_ to, Cyc," he cried, "I was going to do it-" 

"Do what?" 

"I was going to _kill_ him," Tailgate whimpered, "I said I wouldn't, I would rather us both die, but then the building collapsed, and he _begged_ me and said one of us had to make it, and he put the gun in my hand and I-"

"Shh," Cyclonus pushed back so he could put both his hands on the minibot's face, visor misaligned with his mouthplate from overflowing optical lubricant, plating streaked with dirt and energon, and kissed him, as deeply as he could, choking out the words before he could speak them. "He's okay. He's still alive. It's alright. You're alright." 

"He's not alright," Tailgate sniffled, "He's going to die and it's all my fault, I let him get hurt, I didn't cover him well enough, I told him he couldn't kill anyone, and he just kept getting _hurt_ -" 

"Whirl is responsible for his decisions, not you," Cyclonus whispered, pressing their foreheads together. 

After that, Tailgate sobbed wordlessly until his vocalizer shorted, cried soundlessly until he ran out of energy and passed out in Cyclonus's arms.

It was nearly an hour before First Aid finally leaned back, soaked up to his shoulders in spattered energon, looked over at them, and said, "He's stable."

"He's going to be okay?" Cyclonus asked, daring to hope.

"I think so," First Aid said, standing. "Tomorrow I can fix his spinal strut, when his spark is doing better. For now, he just needs to get some _sleep_."

"Thank you," said Cyclonus. 

"You can stay if you want, but you need to get some rest, too," First Aid added, looking tired, "You've barely recharged in days." 

"Thank you," Cyclonus repeated, mindlessly, and adjusted his grip on Tailgate so he could stand up without setting him down, crossing to sit next to Whirl's berth as First Aid moved to the sink against the wall.

Whirl laid still, but not motionless, vents folding open and shut gently with his cooling cycle, and Cyclonus was struck again by how small he looked, even with his abdomen patched and neck wrapped. Gangly limbs looked breakable and crushed armour looked fragile, as if Whirl were not a warrior but a piece of broken artwork, struggling to retain its beauty. Cyclonus longed to reach out and touch him, but he knew First Aid was right, that he needed to _sleep_.

Despite that, Whirl's cracked optic flicked online, dim and half shuttered, helm turning toward him.

"Oh, hey," he mumbled, "All that was real then? I kinda thought I hallucinated it, for a minute there."

"You're alright," Cyclonus murmured gently, letting himself reach out and cradle the side of Whirl's helm with his free hand, and the mech leaned into the touch, "I'm here with you." 

"Don't go," Whirl asked, so quietly Cyclonus almost thought he had imagined it. 

"I won't," he answered. "I'm here." 

"Thank you," Whirl whispered, letting his optic flicker off again.

"I love you," said Cyclonus. 

"I love you, too," Whirl sighed, before he slipped back into unconsciousness. Cyclonus felt flooded with relief, and pulled his hand away, careful not to wake him again, before he crawled into a spare berth with Tailgate and _finally_ got some rest.

* * *

When Cyclonus woke it was to Whirl jerking out of recharge and screaming " _Tailgate!_ " at the top of his vocalizer range and to Tailgate scrambling out of his arms to climb down from the berth they were on and reach up to Whirl, trying to calm him down.

"I'm right here, Birdy, I'm okay!" Tailgate soothed, hands on Whirl's arm, even as his head turned wildly back and forth, as if searching for something else unfathomable, broken spinal strut not allowing him to sit up. "It's okay. We're okay."

Cyclonus sat up as Tailgate crawled up to sit in Whirl's lap, stood and sat down beside him, sitting Whirl up and pulling the trembling helicopter against his chest.

"I'm sorry," Whirl said, voice shaky, "I'm _so_ sorry I asked you to do that. I didn't- I didn't see any other way- all I could think was that I had to save you no matter what, I couldn't-"

"Be still," Cyclonus said, gently, lips ghosting across the side of Whirl's helm, "Don't torment yourself."

"I'm sorry," he repeated, like a broken record, like a ticking clock, the hands warped and stuck together on its face, tick-tick-ticking without ever moving forward, "I'm sorry."

"I know," said Tailgate, burying his face in Whirl's neck. 

"I had to save you," Whirl repeated, pathetically, "I _had_ to." 

"You did," Cyclonus soothed, "He's alright."

"Too much," Whirl mumbled, senselessly, "Was too much."

"Shh," Cyclonus hushed him, "You're safe now. That's what's important. We can talk about it later."

Whirl tightened his grip on Tailgate, possessively, anxiously, wordlessly. 

"Hey," said First Aid, clearly his throat, "I don't really want to break this up, but he really needs to stay lying down."

Reluctantly, unhappily, Cyclonus pulled away and laid Whirl back down, huffing his displeasure. 

"Are you plannin' on fixin' my legs or should I add those to the list of extremities I have a complex over?" Whirl snapped, sounding a bit more like himself, if it was half-hearted. 

"After I take some readings and make sure your spark is at a level I'm happier with, I'll go in and fix your spine," said First Aid, "If I give you some fuel do you think you'll keep it down?"

Whirl considered it. "Yeah," he said, after a moment. First Aid nodded, and turned to retrieve some medical grade. 

"So," Whirl said, eventually, "What took y'all so long, huh?" 

* * *

By the end of the day First Aid had completed the majority of Whirl's repairs, and given him the okay to shuffle tiredly back through the hallways to their room to crawl into the berth and huddle into a ball, desperately relieved to be clutched and held in some Primus damned privacy at last, the dark room a reprieve from the medibay's glaring overhead lights.

He buried his face in Cyclonus's shoulder, clinging like a newspark, like it might ground him, like anything might. Tailgate wrapped behind him, forehead pressed to Cyclonus's above his own.

"I fear I may never let either of you out of my sight again," Cyclonus said, at length, when the silence grew too thick to bear. Whirl huffed static.

"I think I might just be okay with that." 

"Yeah," Tailgate murmured. 

"Honestly, I'd like to lock myself in here for the next, like, two years," Whirl chuckled shakily. 

"I don't think anyone is going to ask you to do a rotation any time soon," Cyclonus said, "And if they did, they'd be answering to me." 

"You're so protective," Whirl said, "You would have done better than me." 

"Only because I'm not grappling with suicidal ideation, my love," Cyclonus moved to kiss the top of Whirl's head consolingly, "but you both made it home. You don't need to be so hard on yourself."

"I do, though," Whirl murmured, voice warbling, "You aren't hard enough on me. This was all my fault in the first place. I shouldn't have been flying, and I shouldn't have ditched, and I almost got Tailgate killed, I almost made him-"

"Hush, hush. You didn't deserve it, Whirl. You did your best." 

"I did deserve it," Whirl clutched tighter at Cyclonus's back, "It was my fault."

"I asked you to let me come with you," Tailgate reminded him, "I didn't deserve it either. I didn't deserve to watch you suffer."

Whirl twisted his helm as if he were searching for an argument and couldn't quite find it, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I asked you to." 

"I'm sorry I let you talk me into it," Tailgate trembled, "I should have been stronger. I should have insisted. I know how you get. It's my job to take care of you, too, you know."

"You already do more than you should have to," Whirl hissed, "I'm already enough of a burden as it is. I make everything harder than it should be. Everyone is sick of me and it makes them sick of you, too. Three days in a cage and I tell you to kill me."

"You aren't a burden," Cyclonus soothed, "You're worth all the effort, even if you shame spiral over this." 

Whirl whined, wordless, frustrated. 

"Can I propose a new rule," Tailgate asked, when it was clear Whirl wasn't going to stop fidgeting, "Nobody asks anybody to kill them again, not to sacrifice themself, not because they're about to turn into a vampire or something, not because they're dying and they want it to be quicker. No more asking anybody to kill you. That doesn't go for just you, Whirl, you're not the only one that's done it."

"Agreed," Cyclonus sighed. 

"I…" Whirl started, "But I was right, though. It had to be me."

"You didn't know we were working to save you. You could have fought harder to give me more time to save you _both._ "

"But what if I'd been _right_ ," said Whirl, pathetically, "If it _was_ him or me," he tightened his grip, "It _has_ to be me."

Cyclonus pried him away so he could lean down and hold his face in his claws, optics earnest, "You are not god and you do not decide who deserves more to live. You fight to survive and you do not give up, not even to be a hero. You are worth saving, too." 

Tailgate hugged Whirl's neck, pressing his faceplate to the top of his helm, "Next time we fight together, and if we have to go, we go together. Don't leave me behind."

"Primus, I hope there's not a next time," Whirl wheezed. 

"We'll be more careful in the future about where we stop," Cyclonus sighed, "This was an extreme situation." 

"I don't wanna lose you," Whirl mumbled, as if he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be heard at all, "I don't wanna go back to how things were. I don't wanna go back to how I was. I want to be happy." 

"If you were _really_ backsliding, you wouldn't want that," Tailgate told him, petting Whirl's head beside where his mask touched him, "You used to be very content to be miserable."

"I feel like I've ruined something, like it's all going to shake apart," Whirl shivered, voice shaking, "I've wrecked everything again."

"You didn't," Cyclonus assured him, "You're here. I'm here. Tailgate is here. _We_ are here, and we are going to deal with it, and _we_ are going to be alright." 

"Are we?" Whirl asked, unabashedly, shamelessly vulnerable. 

"We are," Cyclonus said, like a prayer.

"We are," Tailgate repeated, like a fact.


End file.
